Ten Tips for Parents
1. Be clear about your own sexual values and attitudes.
Communicating with your children about sex, love, and relationships is often more successful when you are certain in your own mind about these issues. To help clarify your attitudes and values, think about the following kinds of questions:
- What do you really think about school-aged teenagers being sexually active - and perhaps even becoming parents?
- Who is responsible for setting sexual limits in a relationship and how is that done, realistically?
- Were you sexually active as a teenager and how do you feel about that now? Were you sexually active before you were married? What do such reflections lead you to say to your own children about these issues?
- What do you think about encouraging teenagers to abstain from sex?
- What do you think about teenagers using contraception?
Mandates for Family Fusion
Mandate One: Cultivate a sense of family identity
Mandate Two: Demonstrate an ongoing love for your spouse
Mandate Three: Understand your child’s private world
Mandate Four: Give your child the freedom to fail
Six Simple Rules to Raise Abstinent Children
1. Start the conversation early. Around 8% of our seventh grade children willingly have sex – so start talking to them about it sooner.
2. Set rules. Kids with rules about dating and activities involving the other sex also have the strongest refusal skills and they talk more about boy/girl issues with their parents.
3. Don’t let your own past hold you back. Parents who had sex as teens are just as effective as are parents who were abstinent. Teens also don’t need to know what you did – it was, after all, a time before AIDS and you can tell them that what you did isn’t relevant to today’s world.
Community Involvement