How And When To Tell Your Kids About Sex

There’s More to Teaching Your Kids
About Sex Than a Nervous
Discussion of the Birds and the Bees

Our children are inundated with messages and information about sex. Everywhere they turn—in our neighborhoods, in the schools, in the media—they are bombarded with discussions, stories, jokes, mixed messages, and debate about sexuality. How can parents have a significant input amid such a din—much of which seems beyond their control?

Stan and Brenna Jones suggest that sex education is really not so much a matter of providing information as it is a matter of deliberate character formation. How our children act in this critical area will not be affected by how much information they have stored away. It wont even be primarily affected by the Bible verses they have memorized, or the warnings we give them. First and foremost, their behavior will be determined by their character. What our children do will be determined by who they are at that particular moment in time.

How and When to Tell Your Kids About Sex will help you to move beyond the “sweaty palms and lumps-in-the-throat” approach to discussing sex with your kids. It will give you the tools you need for building the kind of Christian character in your kids that will enable them to stand on their own and make the right choices.

More often than not, we parents are caught off guard when our children come to us with questions about sex. And if we’re unprepared, the chances are we’ll give awkward, embarrassed, incomplete answers. Too often, we don’t know how to talk to our kids about sex, or when we should do it.

It doesn’t have to be that way. As Christian parents we can do much more than merely pass on information about reproduction. We have the opportunity of shaping the sexual character of our children.

In How and When to Tell Your Kids About Sex, Stan and Brenna Jones offer help for establishing a biblical view of sexuality, and talk about why that is so important in today’s “value-neutral” society. Building on a biblical foundation, they discuss how to talk with your children about sexual issues, and when it’s appropriate to tell them what. You’ll find important, helpful information on issues your children face from infancy through adolescence. With stark honesty and practical suggestions, they address:

▲ Building a Christian understanding of sex and sexuality

▲ Handling sexual curiosity and sexual play (infancy through kindergarten)

▲ Inoculating your child against destructive moral messaged (pre-puberty)

▲ How and when to explain sexual intercourse (pre-puberty)

▲ Preparing for the physical changes of puberty (pre-puberty)

▲ Preparing for dating: dealing with romance and sexual attraction (puberty)

▲ Building moral discernment about petting (adolescence)

▲ Encouraging a commitment to chastity (adolescence)

▲ What to tell your child about contraception (adolescence)

▲ What to do if you’re getting a late start telling your kids about sex

STANTON L. JONES, Ph.D., is provost and professor of psychology at Wheaton College. He has written numerous magazine articles for professional journals and magazines such as Christianity Today.

BRENNA B. JONES is a graduate of Texas A & M University whose goals have focused on the nurture and formation of the character of her children. She has also served as a leader in Bible study ministry with women for number of years. The Joneses make their home in Wheaton, Illinois, with their three children: Jenny, Brandon, and Lindsay.

If I were looking for someone to talk sensibly, scripturally, and knowledgeably about this topic, Stan Jones would top my list. He and his wife, Brenna, have written a very useful book!
−TIM STAFFORD, senior writer, Christianity Today, and author of Sexual Chaos

This is a first-class treatment of an important and often ignored subject. It needs to be read by every parent.
−GARY COLLINS, executive director, American Association of Christian Counselors

In this sexually obsessed culture, Christian parents who fail to shape their children’s concepts about sex are guilty not just of oversight, but of gross neglect. Realistic and practical, How and When to Teach Your Kids About Sex should be a standard reference work on every believing family’s bookshelf.
−KAREN MAINS, co-host, The Chapel of the Air

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