Dear Mom & Dad: Teach, Instruct, Discuss
You have the responsibility to pass along instruction to the next generation.
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. -Proverbs 22:6
Time flies when you’re avoiding “The Talk.” Do you remember how important that topic was to you when you were a teenager — and how your parents skillfully evaded it? You promised yourself you’d do better as a parent. Ouch!
History: Just A Few Changes.
Have we avoided talking to our teenagers about sex because we think, “I got through it without any help…what’s so different for my kids?” Assuming that there is little difference between our adolescent years and today’s teen culture is, on most counts, naïve and incorrect. For just a minute, let’s review some of the changes in technology, history and culture that many of us, as parents, have experienced:
- Color TV as well as HD and plasma TV, cable and satellite
- Video and CD technology (allowing instant home access to movies, including pornography)
- Video and CD technology (allowing instant home access to movies, including pornography)
- Adult TV programming and teen TV programming, including MTV
- Proliferation of explicit sex on television, movies, videos, music, billboards-virtually every media outlet known to man
- Personal computers (allowing for every type of pornography viewing imaginable)
- Chat rooms
- Email (allowing access to people all over the globe)
- Microwave oven (providing instant gratification)
- Pagers and cell phones (allowing non-stop communication)
- “The Pill” (limiting the consequence of sexual activity)
- Abortion legalized
- Civil rights marches, desegregation, Vietnam War, Gulf War
- Proliferation of teen-girl magazines loaded with sex talk
- Rapid increase and intense discussions regarding gender issues and how they effect the traditional family
These are but a few of the thousands of technological and cultural changes that have shaped teen culture.
Information and news are instantly accessible today, allowing for our teen generation to be well informed about their world. They have a lot of knowledge about good and evil within and outside their local community. September 11th and the aftermath brought home to them the perils of war and terrorism. Our world is a dangerous place, and kids know it. But that doesn’t mean they act rationally and thoughtfully in every situation. They have the same “immortality” syndrome we had as teens. They often react emotionally and from their gut. And this increases their vulnerability to danger.
Danger seems to be everywhere, even generating new buzzwords. Terrorism is a buzzword that has come into common use only in the past few years. Other common buzzwords include rights, access, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, binge, purge, chat rooms, morning-after pill, body art, piercing, cutting, X, Meth, date-rape drugs, crack-baby, huffing, parental consent and many additional slang words used for various sexual behaviors. These words relate to many areas of life, including sex, drugs, eating disorders, computer relationships and access to services without parental consent.
One of this generation’s most-used buzzwords is diversity. Acceptance of every person and every behavior is the one “acceptable” concept our children and teens have heard over and over again. If we do not accept everyone and every behavior, we are bigoted. American culture today recognizes few universal rights or wrongs. Only shades of acceptable attitudes, beliefs and behaviors exist. Teens and young adults have largely embraced relativism. Something is wrong if…. Or something is right if….
Teens have learned — often from their parents and other “authority figures” — to question authority. In classrooms, students’ loss of respect for those in authority is frequently played out as rude and disruptive — commonly with little or no consequences. This communication change can be seen in many areas of teens’ and families’ lives.
Communication
Communication represents another dramatic change in teen culture. Communication is now instant, constant and easily accessible. Families can converse with each other easily and frequently.
But good things can be misused. Pagers are frequently used to make anonymous contact between drug dealers and users. Cell phones and e-mail provide a convenient avenue for child predators and children easy access to unsavory people.
Computer-savvy children can type innocent search words into their computer and be instantly assaulted by pornographic images. A mere mouse click can bring e-mail messages from pornography web sites into our home computers. Predators can access children and teens in chat rooms by using sexual language - even arranging meeting times and locations. Technological changes have been both a blessing and a curse.
Television
Television can provide quality family entertainment and education. But cable TV and satellite TV can bring pornography directly into our family rooms. Watch a half-hour of MTV and see one of the most influential media forms in our children’s lives. It is sex, twisted and tainted.
Sex influences
Within all forms of media, American teens will view more than 14,000 sexual references every year. This change from earlier generations is so enormous that it is difficult to fathom. Sexualized media influences our children’s lives, even at the pre-school level. Sex is everywhere. From highway billboards to TV, music, movies, videos (viewed at home or elsewhere) the Internet and magazines, there’s no escaping our sex-saturated society. Topics that were confined to private conversations 20 years ago are now openly discussed in all arenas of society – especially on the playground. Nothing is off limits and nothing appears to be sacred. Pre-school and elementary children are asking questions about sex and gender issues that mimic words they have heard and know nothing about.
Parents’ Responsibility
What is our responsibility as parents? How old do our children need to be before we begin to counteract society’s messages? How old do our children need to be before we talk about God’s Word and His truth concerning sexuality?
We need to begin as early as our children’s questions start. Answer their questions simply and honestly, using scripture references when appropriate. We need to uphold God’s gift of sexuality, God’s original intent and its preciousness. We need to explain the wonder of God’s laws and how He puts them into place to have the best relationships as we enter marriage and bring children into the world. Stand on Proverbs 22:6, believing that if we raise our children in His Word they will be grounded as they become young adults.
Deuteronomy 6:5-9 gives us an excellent command as parents speaking to our children each day in such a way that we are instilling God’s truth into their hearts and minds.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them to your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your house and on your gates.
Communicate to your children about God’s great gift of sexuality. Teach them about the wonder of their bodies. Begin the discussion when they start to ask questions. If they are quiet and do not ask questions, begin formal teaching around 4th or 5th grade.
Instruct them on the protection within God’s laws as written in scripture. As they get older, teach them the blessing of living a chaste life. They will see the wonder of God’s truth as they keep their mind, body and spirit of intimacy intact and whole as they give their most precious gift to their lifelong husband or wife. Their married lives will flourish into the all-encompassing intimacy that God meant it to be.
You have the responsibility to pass along instruction to the next generation. Reap the blessings as you watch your children grow into adulthood as whole, wondrous and life-giving human beings.
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