Good Secrets, Bad Secrets: The Sex Talk Most Parents Skip

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Hello, friends. Today's podcast question is this:

When introducing the topic of sex to young children, how do you convey that it is not something they should talk about with their friends without conveying that sex is shameful? I know abusers will often tell children, "This is just between me and you," so I want to avoid that happening as well.

This is a really good question for us to think through. If we are talking with our children about sex at a young age, which I highly recommend we start doing around the age of four, how do we convey that sex is something good, but that we shouldn't talk about it with our friends, while also not giving our children the false impression that if somebody is inappropriately talking with them or touching them, that that's a secret they should keep as well?

Start With the Difference Between Good Secrets and Bad Secrets

The way I think we need to start this discussion is, after we have explained the concept of sex to our children, we need to discuss the difference between good secrets and bad secrets. There are two different types of secrets.

Good secrets are understanding that something is so special, it should only be shared with certain people.

For example, maybe you have a house key hidden in your garage or somewhere out in the yard, in case you ever get locked out of your house. You can talk with your child about how that key is something really special. It opens up the door to our house, and we don't want just anybody to be able to open the door and walk in. So we keep it a secret that just those of us in our family know where the house key is hidden. That's a good secret. We don't want to tell everybody about it.

Or you can talk about valuables that are hidden in a safe. If you're in a hotel, you can show your kids the safe and explain that sometimes people bring really expensive jewelry or other things they want to keep safe, and they put it here in this safe. Only they have the combination. It's a secret, and it's a good secret because what they're putting in there is so valuable that they don't want others to know about it.

You can also talk about online passwords. As you're signing into an account, talk about how this is a password that gets you into our bank, or whatever it is you're using the password for. What you have in there is so special that only you and maybe a few other people have that password. That's a secret you're going to keep because it's a good secret.

As you're explaining about sex, you can talk about sex being a good secret. I'll walk us through that in a little bit.

What Bad Secrets Look Like

Before we get into that, we want to explain to our kids what bad secrets are: bad secrets are trying to hide sin.

For example, if somebody steals something and somebody else sees them and says, "Shh, don't tell anybody that I stole this," that's a bad secret, because that's a secret that's trying to hide this person's sin. Maybe one of your children broke something in the house and their siblings saw it, and they say, "Don't tell mom I broke this." That's again a bad type of secret, because it's trying to hide someone's sin. Or if someone hurts somebody else and then says, "Don't you dare tell anybody that I hurt you," that's a bad type of secret because it's trying to hide sin.

So we want our kids to understand the difference between good secrets, where what we're doing is protecting something that's very special, and bad secrets, where someone is trying to cover up sin.

If your kids are visual people, you can give them visuals to represent this. A good secret is like a shield. It's shielding others from getting in, protecting something that's valuable. A bad secret is like a hole dug in the ground, where someone is trying to dig a really deep hole so that no one can see their sin. So you can give them those two visual examples.

Connecting This to the Sex Talk

When we connect this to the topic of sex, we do want to tell our kids, as we're explaining the concept of sex, that they should not be talking about it with others.

For those of you who have taken your kids through "The Talk"...Made Easy series we have at Foundation Worldview, you know that in the second video, where we explain the basic mechanics of sex, we say that sex is the promise. It's showing the promise of marriage, and it's so special that kids should not talk about it with other kids. If your kids have any questions, they should come to you with their questions.

If you haven't yet checked out our "The Talk"...Made Easy series, I highly recommend you do. It's just three short video lessons. The first one covers the basics of anatomy, what it means to be a boy or a girl. The second one covers the basic mechanics of sex. The third one covers the basics of reproduction. You can either choose to watch those videos ahead of time and then use the same examples and language we use, or you can use the videos to watch alongside your child so that we do all of the hard work for you, and then we just direct your child back to you for any questions they may have.

So as you're explaining sex and that your child shouldn't talk about it with others, you can then ask: is sex a good secret, in that it's something so special that it should only be shared with certain people? Or is it a bad secret, trying to hide sin? Is it like that shield, or is it like digging a hole to try to hide sin?

Then say, not talking about sex with others is a good kind of secret. It's understanding that sex is special, and that God designed it only to be shared between a husband and a wife. So remind your children that they can come to you if they have any questions, that it's appropriate for them to talk with you about sex because you are training them. However, it's not appropriate for them to talk with friends or other adults about sex. Reminding them: sex is a good secret. It's like the shield. We are protecting something.

The Bad Secret Side: When Someone Else Tries to Talk With Your Child About Sex

Then you can explain that having someone else talk with your child about sex would be a bad secret. At their young age, no one aside from you as their mom or dad should be talking with them about sex. So if someone else tries to talk with them about sex, it's important for them to tell you.

You can explain it like this: "If somebody else, if a friend or another adult, tries to talk with you about sex, that's like the bad kind of secret. They should not be talking with you about sex. So if somebody else tries to talk with you about sex, I want you to come to me, and I want you to tell me what that person was talking about."

This way you're helping your kids differentiate between sex being a good secret, where knowing about it and protecting it by not talking about it with others is appropriate, versus someone who should not be talking with them about sex, and that being a bad kind of secret.

"Don't Tell Your Parents" Is a Red Flag

It is really important that we are proactive in protecting our children from keeping that second kind of secret, the abuse kind of secret.

I used to always tell my students (those of you who are faithful Foundation Worldview podcast listeners know that I used to teach fourth grade and then third grade for a decade in a Christian school), whenever somebody says, "Don't tell your parents," the first thing you should do is go and tell your parents.

The one exception is a surprise party. If your grandparents or an aunt or uncle is planning a surprise birthday party or anniversary party and they tell you when the party is going to be and they say, "Don't tell your parents," that's fine. But any other kind of secret that someone is asking you to keep from your parents is a bad secret, because God has placed your parents in a position of authority in your life where they are loving you and caring for you. So anyone who is asking you to keep a secret from your parents that's not a surprise-party kind of secret is trying to hide sin.

I recommend you have a similar conversation with your kids and let them know that if anybody says, "Don't tell your parents," the first thing they should do is come and tell you, again, unless it's a surprise party.

Always Affirm Your Child's Decision to Come to You

Now we need to make sure that we are always affirming our children for coming to us with things, even when those things are difficult or sinful. We don't affirm the sin or the difficulty, but we affirm that what they have done is the right thing in coming to us, because a lot of times it's easy for us to just react to what they have told us, rather than positively reacting to the fact that they have come to us.

I was thinking about this recently because in the evenings I enjoy watching an episode or two of Leave It to Beaver, that old 1950s and '60s TV show. In so many episodes, the Beaver and Wally hide things from their parents. Their parents are always saying, "You can always come to us. You can always tell us things. It's really important that you tell us the truth." But then whenever the boys do come to their parents, their dad usually kind of blows his top. And the boys are like, "See, you told us to come to you and we wouldn't get in trouble, and now we're getting in trouble."

So it's really important that our reaction be one that is positive, that we want to always encourage our children to come to us with things. This doesn't mean that if our children come to us and confess a sin (let's say they were stealing cookies for the past week after dinner, or they disobeyed us in some way) that there isn't discipline. When they confess sin, usually there does need to be discipline. However, it does mean that we need to frame our response in a way where they feel the warmth of our affection and our deep love for them when they come to us.

As we make this a habit, of them coming to us even with hard things, we are keeping those lines of communication open. And it's going to be so much easier for our children to come to us in difficult situations, like someone talking or touching or doing something else inappropriate to them. So we want to make sure that we are always letting them feel the warmth of our affection and our deep love for them when they come to us, no matter what they are sharing.

To Summarize

As we are talking with our children about the concept of sex, it's really important that we help them differentiate between good secrets (the kind of secret where something is protected because it's so special) and bad secrets (secrets designed to cover up sin). And we can continually have these conversations with our children.

Walk Through the Sex Talk With Confidence

If you haven't yet had the foundational sex conversation with your child, our companion article How to Talk to Kids About Sex (Without the Awkwardness) is the best place to start — it walks through the three basic conversations to have with young kids.

If you'd like the full curriculum that we use ourselves, our "The Talk"...Made Easy resource is three short video lessons covering the basics of anatomy, the mechanics of sex, and reproduction. You can preview them on your own and then use the same language with your child, or watch alongside your child so that we do the heavy lifting and they come back to you with any questions. You can find Talk Made Easy in our shop.

If you have a question that you would like me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that question through our podcast page.

As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that, no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care find yourselves, you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son.

I'll see you next time.