Despite the temptation to think otherwise, I am certain there has never been a time or a context in which it has been easy to raise children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Rather, every set of parents of every era and place has had to face challenges. Very often, some of the most pressing challenges are related to sexuality—protecting children from aberrant views of sexuality while training them to know and obey the Bible. It is only foolish and reckless parents who send their children into the world without some form of such discipleship.
As much as every generation of parents needs to instruct their children in matters of sex and sexuality, today’s parents face some unique challenges. There are new categories to consider, new forms of immorality, and new media through which these are being taught and displayed. Today’s parents need to be informed, wise, and bold. Thankfully, they are well equipped with guides to help them, and one of these is Helping Your Kids Know God’s Good Design by Elizabeth Urbanowicz. Urbanowicz is the founder of Foundation Worldview, a ministry that provides resources meant to help parents, church leaders, and educators equip children to think critically and biblically. In that ministry, she has interacted with thousands of people and learned the kinds of questions they are asking (or ought to be asking) about the children in their care. Her book answers 40 of the most pressing and important.
Helping Your Kids Know God’s Good Design is structured around five themes: how and when to talk about sex; teaching biblical views on sexuality; addressing anxieties and fears; when loved ones are living outside of God’s design; and everyday questions and conversations. Each offers a selection of questions and answers that run to two or three pages. Here is a representative selection of them:
- When should I first have the sex talk with my child?
- How can I help my child think biblically about their body?
- How do I talk to my child about pornography?
- How do I talk about sexual purity without making my child feel shame or guilt?
- How do I teach my child to love others without affirming another person’s sin?
- How should I explain to my child why we are not attending a loved one’s same-sex wedding?
- How can I encourage my child who doesn’t fit in with traditional gender norms?
- What guardrails should I put in place when it comes to books, TV, Internet and other media?
These questions and many others are treated wisely, biblically, and briefly, though not so briefly as to be unhelpful. For each chapter, Urbanowicz considers how to explain a positive, biblically sound theology of the topic, then explores how sin has corrupted it. In that way, rather than coming across as defensive, the book maintains a positive tone. “Starting such conversations with what is positive is vital because sexuality is an inherently good thing. God designed sex and gave it to us as a gift. It is not inherently dirty or shameful, and we want our children to know this. Only after they understand the goodness of God’s design can we then convey how sin has corrupted it. If we flip the order, beginning such conversations with the corruption, our child’s understanding of sexuality will be tainted, and they may never understand that God’s design truly is good.”
God’s design for sex is good, indeed, and parents ought to gladly embrace the opportunity to explain something so good and so wondrous to their children. They need to be willing to overcome feelings of awkwardness to explain it positively, and they need to be informed so they can address it appropriately, speaking to the many ways it is perverted and misused. Helping Your Kids Know God’s Good Design will equip them to do just that, and for that reason, I gladly recommend it.
