Recently, a mom brought her 14-year-old daughter into my (Freda) Ob/Gyn clinic after just finding out that the girl was sexually active. In taking her sexual history I learned that the young lady had actually started having sex when she was 12 and in the two years since had 14 different partners. When I questioned her about the number of partners, her response was “Well, I only have sex with my boyfriend.”

Our popular culture had led her to believe that it was okay to have sex at 12 or 14 as long as you have a relationship with the person, and for her, it was okay because each guy she had sex with was, at the time, her “boyfriend.”

Now you can play it forward, as I did, and do the math and see how many partners she would have by 18 because obviously these relationships were not long term. So, it was instructive for me to talk to her and her mother about what this would mean to her body physically, psychologically and emotionally. And I had the scientific information to back it up.

One of the important things I had to help the mother understand was that studies have shown that parents are the most influential voice in the decisions of their children. I told the mother that she was actually abdicating her responsibility by bringing her daughter in, asking me to “help her to do what she is doing safely.” Instead, I asked the mother to think about “What is it that you desire for your daughter? What is it that you want to see her do?” Then I asked her to have that conversation with her daughter.

Unknown risks

Parents always find it hard to talk to children about sex. If they have a past of multiple sexual partners, it makes it doubly hard for them to talk to them, especially to give them good guidance—the kind of guidance that will lead them away from being involved sexually until they get married. But that past can also be their credibility. They don’t want their children to make the mistakes they have made.

For a young woman or young man with that kind of a history, the risk of sexually transmitted diseases is obviously very high. But there are also other emotional or physical risks that parents and children both need to be aware of that come with being sexually active outside of marriage as a teenager.

For example, when we do anything exciting, a hormone called dopamine is released in our brain that makes us feel like the world is good, that we have been a success. This hormone makes us want to repeat that activity.

Dopamine is necessary for us because it is what gives kids this excitement about leaving home and taking the huge risk of going out and being independent adults, which is a necessary part of growing up. But that hormone also can be negative because if a kid, for example, enjoys speeding at 100 miles an hour down a twisted road, he gets a dopamine kick for that, too. And the dopamine makes him want to repeat it.

When any of us have sexual intercourse, we have a huge outpouring of dopamine into our brains. It is released when a married couple has sex, which makes them want to repeat the sexual act which then allows them to get pregnant and have babies. But for the unmarried kid it makes him want to repeat that sexual act again and again. It is the same hormone that is secreted with addiction to drugs and nicotine.

Emotionally attached

Another thing teens may not understand is that even with one act of intercourse they will be emotionally attached to the person they are having intercourse with, and that these attachments can last a lifetime. During sexual intercourse, in the female brain there are more receptors for oxytocin, and in the male brain there are more receptors for vasopressin. Both hormones cause the person to feel emotionally attached to the other, even with just one act of intercourse.

So those in a relationship not only have the dopamine that rewards them for the repeating of the act, but also the oxytocin and the vasopressin that makes them feel attached. Thus, we have the name of our book Hooked. You become attached, addicted, bonded to each other.

In marriage, that is a good thing because you will stay attached to each other. Children are reproduced and you bond to those children, care for them, and help them grow up and our human race survives. But if you are 14 years old and have had 14 partners, and are still attached in some way to all 14 of them, you create problems.

All of this results in actual physical changes in the brain. When these hormones flow and send their impulses, they dramatically affect connections or synapses between the neurons in the brain. Those synapses actually are strengthened when we repeat a behavior or they are weakened when we stop. So, when you repeatedly attach and unattach with multiple sexual partners you actually weaken the ability to stay connected. Studies have shown that when people have had multiple sexual partners before marriage they are more likely to divorce because they actually weaken the pathways that are necessary to attach at the deep and necessary emotional level important for marriage.

The immature brain

One of the reasons parents are so important during their children’s adolescent years is because the Prefrontal Cortex – the part of the brain where we make rational decisions and where dopamine has its greatest influence – is not fully mature until the mid-twenties. Teenagers are not brain damaged. It’s just that they are not mature, and any parent of a teenager knows exactly what we are talking about. The growth of these synapses is increased before birth and again when they are in pre-puberty. Then, between puberty and the mid-twenties, the hardwiring is molded and “set” in its mature condition.

So, these adolescents need the judgment of parents to help them through those years with decisions about the future and to consider the consequences that they cannot fully see for themselves. Otherwise these mechanisms we have described as so important for marriage become a trap—an ambush of brain molding and a habit of behavior that can hurt them in ways they cannot imagine, not just for a few months but often for a lifetime.

We find that in every bit of this science we have looked at—the neuroscience, diseases, and so forth—that human beings are designed to be with one other person sexually and monogamously for life. The use of the term “design” calls to mind the intelligent design of God, but it is so amazing that even the secular reproductive anthropologists who would disagree with much of what we’ve said here use the word.

Based on the most modern neuroscience, sex is a whole body experience. The brain is the biggest and most important sex organ of the body. All these hormones in the brain and all these synapses that influence our habits and our patterns of living were designed by God so that we can be connected to one person for a lifetime in marriage.

As parents, that is our assignment: to guide our children so they can experience the very best thing that God has for them.

Adapted excerpt from Hooked by Dr. Freda Bush and Dr. Joe McIlhaney. Copyright © 2008 by Northfield Publishing; New Edition edition

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My teen years landed smack in the middle of purity culture’s best intentions—which admittedly got a lot of things right, but a lot of things wrong. I was warned of time alone in a car with a boy. Gratuitous emotional attachment. The power of cleavage. 

But if I were to visit my younger self, I’d focus on a more significant complication: my identity.

No, I didn’t sleep with someone before marriage. But I was wooed by a near eating disorder, top-of-class performance as a human doormat, and insatiable hunger for validation from boys and other Christians. When sexual purity became a spiritual barometer, moral performance welded itself to my sense of worth, even in God’s eyes (or so I thought). I quickly chose a shiny exterior.

Maybe your experience growing up was like mine. I was good at obeying, but I was poor at thinking critically. When it came to sex and dating, I faithfully drank the Kool Aid of formulaic, fear-based interpretations of God’s Word.

Convictions were easier for me to establish than a sense of worth. And the resulting undertow proved perilous.

For this overachieving people-pleaser, my cravings simply “got religion” and a little moral lipstick. I see now that teaching my own kids about sex and other spiritual life skills involves cultivating an identity and a voice honed by the Holy Spirit … rather than other people.

Maybe identity and sex were mixed up for you in a completely different way. You may have felt like damaged goods, internalizing and maybe acting from profound shame. Or maybe the gaping holes in your soul led to serial dating, belittling others, or fear of relationships altogether./p>

Sex, lies, and sieves

Don’t miss this: To kids flailing to understand who they are, a misled sense of identity can undermine our efforts for their sexual integrity. And even a misguided pursuit of sexual purity can reinforce performance-tinged lies about identity. 

I believe God wanted to speak love and worth to my soul as His daughter (Zephaniah 3:17). He longed to develop deep roots grounding me not in my uprightness, but in his love (Ephesians 3:14-19). 

But I couldn’t hear Him, couldn’t fill up on that satisfying love. And in that loss and instability, approval, control, and performance seemed like the meal replacements I was starving for (see Isaiah 55:1-3). My insecurity’s imbalance led to flirtatiousness and gaps I longed to have occupied by guys. 

Pastor Henri Nouwen said we believe three lies about why we’re valuable:

• I am what I do. (I’m talented, helpful, or unique.)

• I am what others say or think about me. (I’m loved or respected.)

• I am what I have. (I want control, comfort, or safety. I have family, friends, possessions, or reputation.) 

These lies taunt us every day—inflating the balloon of our ego when everything works out, deflating us when it doesn’t. Tragically, these lies never deliver fulfillment.

As a parent, I see that I carry some of my own gaps on to my kids. (Even our kids’ success or failure on the sexual journey impacts a parent’s sense of worth!) 

Which of Nouwen’s lies are most tempting to your kids? To you? 

You are more than this: Shaping an identity that protects

It’s like God’s words in Jeremiah 2:13 imply: “My people have committed a compound sin: they’ve walked out on me, the fountain of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns—cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves” (MSG). 

God gives us and our kids unchanging, solid value. He tugs us out of the daily courtroom determining our worth. Because:

• Jesus has done enough. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6, 5:21, Hebrews 10:14)

• God accepts us because of Jesus. (Romans 5:1, 8, John 1:12, 6:37)

• He gives us everything we need. (2 Corinthians 9:8, 12:9, Philippians 4:12-13, 19)

You don’t have to keep wearing yourself out! He whispers.You’re my deeply beloved child. It’s who you are. It’s why you matter. 

Not their likes on social media, sexual orientation, or superior moral choices.

And His is the only voice in the universe worthy of naming us. This truth, spoken by the Word, can be invalidated by nothing. We must only receive it, rejecting false selves.

What can healthy identity messages around sex sound like?

I can tie my kids’ sexual identity to what Jesus has said about them and done for them by communicating truths like these:

• Even if you mess up, Jesus has done enough. 
• We’re all broken sexually. You don’t have to pretend to be morally “clean.” It’s Jesus who makes us holy, not you coming to Him with all the boxes checked.
• God made your body and emotions. You can listen to what they’re saying and bring that to Him. Both your body and emotions communicate valuable information (including about what isn’t safe)! Hating your body, emotions, or self isn’t holy. You are loved by God as you are. 
• When something makes you feel “dirty,” guilty, or bad, you can run toward God, bringing Him everything. God accepts us because of Jesus. 
• You don’t need to be the attractive person. The unique person. The popular person. The desired person. The person with someone on their arm. You are already precious to God. 
• You don’t need to stay in a damaging friendship or dating relationship. God declares you valuable and gives you what you need—which they can’t give.
• You are a deeply beloved child of God, living among others God loves. You can treat your body, your voice, and every person in your community with honor and respect.

Talking to kids about sex: “Caught” more than taught

Our kids are always watching—and smarter than we think they are, right? Your lived example of identity—your relationship to your own body, how you respond to your own and others’ stories,  failures, or successes, what life goals you consider worthy—will be far more powerful than words. Try ways like these for still-in-process parents to show and tell of an identity rooted in God’s love: 

• Live in a way that shows Jesus is your ultimate identity. Through our words and our lives, we as parents can demonstrate that we wholeheartedly choose Jesus as King over every affection, every other identity.

This might be demonstrated in the way you respond to your lack of housekeeping perfection or your child not making that audition. It could mean you work at being more present in conversation with your kids than your to-do list. Or that when you work out or choose clothing, it’s because you want to honor God more than vanity or fear. Your child might see it in how you react to conflict—when you lose control, comfort, safety, or someone attempts to dominate you. 

• Practice your unshocked face. Convey your kids can come to you with anything. From the time kids are small, talk about sex matter-of-factly and with emotional wholeness. Kids gain the idea they can trust us, and they can bring themselves, their issues with friends, and their questions as they are. Without us being horrified by their humanity.
• Be the first to apologize when you mess up. Generating a culture of humility, confession, and forgiveness can help remove the pressure of self-righteousness and false pretenses (i.e., false identity). Rather than your perfection as a parent, give kids the idea that we all need Jesus here.
• Continue to work toward your own lifelong sexual wholeness. Have pockets of sexual shame or wounding you’ve ignored for years? Is it hard to embrace God’s gift of your body and sexuality because of unbalanced messages from your past? Welcome to the club! Model for your child the courage and conviction needed to keep pursuing healing, freedom, and truth.
• Nix the judginess. Your emotional safety is assessed long before it’s tested. Without it, you may lose the relational bridge allowing you to speak into your child’s identity.

Say you have a teen dealing with same-sex attraction. He hears you, in the comfort of your home, berate a guy caught sexting. Or dole out an outspoken opinion on alcohol. If I were in his Nikes, I’m thinking, If they’re convinced a margarita is a sin, I can imagine what they’d say to urges of a more questionable caliber.

This doesn’t mean we don’t discern. Judging others creates “us/them” categories, where one superior category of people condemns the other. Loving discernment remembers we’re all equal at the cross. It offers hope and unity as we bear the burden of sin and weakness together (1 Corinthians 13:7, Galatians 6:1-2).

• Love lavishly. On that day your daughter goes all Chernobyl on you? Without being a doormat, maybe she would receive your message of unconditional love via her favorite snack. This restates, Who you are is more than what you do. You are accepted by God when you mess up, and you’re accepted by us.

Identity: Accept no substitutes

Like identifying counterfeit currency, it’s impossible for me to anticipate all future ways the enemy of my kids’ souls may offer fraudulent identities. 

The enemy may convince them to find their sense of self in their gender or who they’re attracted to. He may woo them with the effortless false intimacy of pornography. He may attach their worth to their body type, as he did (does) for me. 

But with the power of the Holy Spirit, I can consistently direct my kids to the Living Water. Hopefully, they’ll be more likely to identify the taste of lies corrosive to who they are. 

Copyright © 2023 Janel Breitenstein. All rights reserved.

Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and frequent contributor for FamilyLife, including Passport2Identity®, Art of Parenting®, and regular articles. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six has returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International. Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House), empowers parents to creatively engage kids in vibrant spirituality. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.

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My husband had just returned home with our youngest son after a weekend away for the sex talk. Christian, 11 at the time, sheepishly told me, “Mom, I feel like I’m too young to know all these things about sex.” 

I reassured him, “I know how you feel, but Dad and I want to tell you about sex before you learn about it from your friends or what you see in movies.” 

Christian went off to play but returned a few hours later with an observation. “Mom, I’ve been thinking. The way the world is going, when I have my own kids, I’m going to have to have this talk with them when they are like 4 years old.” 

That was about 10 years ago, and my son’s words have proven true. Now more than ever, you need to be talking to your kids about sex.

Talking to your kids about sex

In my generation, our parents said nothing. Ten years ago, we took tweens away for a weekend, hoping that would be adequate. Today, we need an ongoing dialogue with our children starting when they are 3 or 4. 

The culture at large is eager to talk to your children about sex. Even within preschool programming, your children are absorbing messages about what it is to be male or female and the purpose of love and sexuality. 

Sexual topics today are also worldview topics. What you believe about sex will be rooted in what you believe about God and what it means to flourish as human beings. This is why it is so critical for you to intentionally engage with your children in conversations about sex. You want to teach them first, establishing the beautiful framework with which God has created the gift of sexuality and alerting them to the ways it can be distorted. You may erroneously think you are protecting your kids by not talking to them honestly about sex. But you protect them by talking to them openly about it.   

Over the past decade of ministry, I’ve realized what we really need is not sex education, but sexual discipleship. Sexual education teaches what to think about sex. Sexual discipleship teaches how to think about sex—it is the ongoing journey of applying God’s truth to sexual questions and experiences.

That’s easy to say but may seem very difficult to do. If you feel like you are charting new territory within your own family, you probably are. Your parents’ greatest concern may have been that you would not have sex as a teenager. They never dreamed of having conversations with you about polygamy, sexting, gender ideology, or same-sex desire. 

As intimidating as navigating these waters might feel, you can do it! Your kids not only need you to talk to them about sex, they want you to. 

Here is the good news. Your kids don’t know it is awkward to talk about sex unless you make it awkward. Regardless of your experience growing up, you get to set the tone that talking about sex can be normal, encouraging, and empowering. 

Be intentional about life-stage conversations

If you are not intentional about talking with your children about sex, you may never get around to it. You will never feel like they are old enough or you are prepared enough. 

Your child needs to learn that our bodies, including our genitals, were God’s idea. He created them with the capacity to experience great pleasure, but this also means they have the potential to be the source of vulnerability and pain. God created sex and gender to show us the importance of intimacy, of being known. Sexual desire is our body’s way of telling us that we were not made to do life alone. Your mission is to communicate these truths throughout childhood with age-specific language. 

Ages 3-4

Preschoolers are all about discovery—including their bodies. Without shame, they touch every part of themselves, returning to areas that are pleasurable and comforting. This is normal exploration and not what you might consider “sexual” touch. In general, ignoring or gentle redirection is the best approach when this occurs. 

When you teach your child at this stage, begin with the goodness of how God created our bodies, including the specific parts He gave to boys and girls. It may seem wrong to use words like “penis” and “vagina” with a 4-year-old, but most experts agree that using the appropriate terms is better than using childish names like “woo-woo” or “willy.” Establish yourself as a trustworthy “expert” for your child in teaching about marriage and where babies come from by using picture books that provide age-appropriate language for preschoolers. 

Ages 5-8

While developmental psychologists once termed this the latency stage (meaning kids are not likely to be thinking about sex), modern culture unfortunately introduces sexual themes to school-age children. Your children may become curious as they make observations or become exposed to sexual themes through friends or media. 

Be intentional about being the place your child brings all their questions. You can do this by continuing to initiate conversations about love, marriage, sexuality, and gender. You also need to alert your child about the ways that the good gift of sex can be twisted. If you’re concerned about sounding judgy, you can say things like, “Everyone’s life is a little different. Some people have made different choices or had hard things happen or don’t think about God the same way we do.” This is the age to begin talking to your son or daughter (always with age-appropriate language) about pornography and inappropriate touch. 

Ages 9-14 

Kids need to be prepared to understand their changing bodies and how to deal with sexual desires and experiences. This should be a season of specific and many conversations teaching your child about the biological, emotional, and spiritual elements of sexuality while also inviting and initiating questions and dialogue.

Don’t try to fit everything you want to tell your son or daughter into one conversation or even a weekend. If you have a child in the tween or early teen years, consider having a weekly or monthly date. One father discipled his son with “Bible and bagels” every Friday morning. A mom had ongoing conversations with her daughter with a monthly after-school outing.

Ages 15 and up

Unfortunately, most conversations between parents and teens about sex involve negotiating boundaries or consequences. This is one of the reasons why you’re not done yet. Stay engaged in positive conversations with your teen about sex. Your teen is still learning, absorbing messages from the world, and needing to learn from your wisdom and guidance. Kids this age want to discuss their ideas, not just listen to yours. 

Instead of teaching, think of coaching and guiding in your conversations. When you set boundaries and limits, explain why. Help your teen develop the critical thinking skills to someday soon make independent decisions. At this stage, it can also be appropriate to share with your teen what you have learned through your sexual journey—your regrets and what God has been teaching you. 

Look for teachable moments. 

As you navigate daily life, your kids may ask innocent questions about how babies get in mom’s tummy, why we have boundaries with bathing and nakedness, and why mom and dad kiss. A trip to the zoo or a local farm may prompt some natural “birds and bees” conversations. 

As kids get older, the teachable moments are still around: A Christian leader has an affair. A cousin identifies as non-binary. Your news feed is screaming about high-profile sexual abuse allegations. Circumstances like these force us to grapple with questions about sexual wholeness, brokenness, and empathy. These are the kinds of conversations that can foster true discipleship—not just memorizing a list of rules, but the journey of walking with Jesus in every area of life. 

Teachable moments can be most effective when you begin with questions, not just answers. Questions give you the opportunity to gauge what your child or teen actually knows and foster a thoughtful approach. For example, you might respond to a young child’s question about where babies come from with, “How do you think you got in my tummy?” With an older child or teenager, do a lot of listening before you start speaking. You want to encourage your child to share his or her thoughts, communicating that you’re a safe person for questions. 

I have one son who likes to talk and process out loud. Sometimes I will spend an hour or more listening before I ever begin sharing my thoughts. For him, my listening makes the words I speak more personal and powerful. 

Be prepared for challenges. 

Guiding your kids toward sexual wholeness is not a pass-fail test, for you or for them. It’s a messy journey for many kids and their parents. Most likely, your children will be exposed to pornography. Your son or daughter may struggle with gender confusion or same-sex desire. Your child might engage in sexting or experiment sexually with a peer. 

Even imagining these possibilities may feel intimidating. However, you also have to prepare them to walk through the minefield of sexuality in our day and culture. That means the potential for struggle.  

Some of the best conversations I’ve had with my children about sex have been in the face of challenges and failures. The heart of Christianity is not a list of sexual do’s and don’ts but a message of God’s love for us. When we experience hardship and when we sin, God is with us, providing comfort and direction. We need to be able to do this for our children, especially as they experience struggle and sometimes stumble. 

While you can’t prepare for every possible situation you may face on this journey, you can determine how you want to respond. Remember that the relationship matters. Regardless of what your child may have done, seen, or experienced, they need to know that nothing will ever impact your love for them. There must be a time for teaching and boundaries, but lead with love and reassurance. 

We serve a God who has promised never to leave us alone. He forgives our sins and redeems our heartache. While you will never perfectly model God’s love as a parent, you can be a witness to how He has met you in your own struggles and failures. 

While your parents may have dreaded or avoided talking to you about sex, you get to change the narrative with your own children. Think of it this way: Talking to your kids about sex is not just talking to them about sex. Through the many conversations you may have with your children, you get to teach them about love, longing, intimacy, truth, and grace. We live in a changing world fraught with new challenges that also present new opportunities to discover and impress God’s goodness on the hearts of this next generation.

Copyright © 2023 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Dr. Juli Slattery is a widely known clinical psychologist, author, speaker and broadcast media professional. She’s the president and co-founder of Authentic Intimacy. She hosts a podcast called Java With Juli, where she answers tough questions about relationships, marriage, spiritual, emotional and sexual intimacy. She has authored eight books, including 25 Questions You’re Afraid to Ask About Love, Sex, and Intimacy. Juli and her husband, Mike, have been married since 1994, have three sons, and live in Colorado Springs.

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What to do if your child is struggling with their sexuality? From puberty to around 25yrs old connections in the brain are still forming, making new connections. Your child is very VULNERABLE at these stages. Be a resource for them to express how they feel and share what they’re struggling with.. Share God’s point of view with them and relate theirs to his.
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What if you were hearing conflicting messages about moral values-from two people you loved and respected-and very much wanted to please? That is what a child who lives in two different homes and is part of a blended family often feels. Melody Fabien joins Ron Deal for a conversation about her experience learning to navigate between the homes, hearts, and faith of her divorced parents. Her stance to remain sexually abstinent before marriage was not supported by one of her parents and caused much heartache. Learn how she eventually reconciled how to live between two homes and how God redeemed her story and continues to use it to help other couples.

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On our wedding day we think the vow we make to our spouse will be enough for our marriage. Andy Stanley says, “promises are not substitute for preparation.” Dave and Ann Wilson share about some baggage that we need to prepare for prior to marriage.
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FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember®.
Vertical Marriage: The One Secret That Will Change Your Marriage by Dave and Ann Wilson.
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The culture has old rules on how to do love, sex, and dating and they really don’t work. Dave Wilson explains some new rules that do work.
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FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember®.
Vertical Marriage: The One Secret That Will Change Your Marriage by Dave and Ann Wilson.
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Brother and sister Jessica Thompson and Joel Fitzpatrick explain why it’s important to talk to your children about sex. Joel talks honestly about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a distant family member, which began around the age of 6, and the shame, confusion, and guilt it caused in his heart. Though the abuse did skew his thinking about sex, Joel tells how God renewed his mind and redeemed his pain.
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Mom, Dad…What’s Sex? by Jessica Thompson and Joel Fitzpatrick
FamilyLife’s Art of Parenting video series

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