How to Talk to Kids About Sexual Brokenness in Your Family

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This post covers a sensitive topic that your children should probably hear from you first. Consider reading it when it's just you.

Today's podcast question says, "My single sister-in-law was raped and is now pregnant. How do we explain this to our children, who know where babies come from and are bound to have questions? Is it appropriate to share the personal details of their aunt/cousin's story with young children, three to eight years old?"

This is a hard question. And the first thing I want to say to the person who wrote in this question is: I am so sorry. I'm so sorry that your family is walking through this situation. I can only imagine how difficult this is.

But I'm so encouraged, first of all, that your sister-in-law has chosen life in a culture that makes it very easy for us to just quietly choose to face one sin with another sin. I'm so, so grateful that she has chosen life. And I'm also grateful that you are intentionally thinking through how to help your children understand this really painful situation.

For many listeners, you're not going to encounter this exact situation in your life, but there is a broader question here: When we teach our kids about God's good design for sex and reproduction at a young age, how do we explain the situations of brokenness that they will undoubtedly encounter in the world around us?

Start the Conversations About Sex Young

For those of you who are faithful Foundation Worldview Podcast listeners, you already know that here at Foundation Worldview, we strongly encourage you to have the first of many sex talks with your child around the age of four. Understanding biblical sexuality is not just a one-and-done conversation. It is a whole lifetime of growing-up conversations. So we encourage you to start these conversations young, as this questioner has already done.

If you're thinking, "Oh my goodness, I have never thought about this before. Why in the world would you start having the first biblically based sex talk at age four?" I highly recommend you check out our book, Helping Your Kids Know God's Good Design: 40 Questions and Answers on Sexuality and Gender. This book covers why it's very wise to have the initial sex talk at a young age.

And if you're thinking, "I know it's important, but I don't know how to have the initial sex talk. I don't think I can do it, and it's going to be terrible," we have a mini-series at Foundation Worldview called "The Talk"...Made Easy. It is a three-lesson video series, and each video is around eight minutes long. It walks through the basics of male and female anatomy, the basics of sex, and the basics of reproduction. You can either choose to watch the videos and then have the conversations yourself, or you can choose to watch the videos with your child and let us say the hard things first. In each video, we direct them to you for any questions they have.

So if you haven't already considered having the first of many sex talks at a young age, I highly recommend that you do so.

When Those Close to Us Walk Through Brokenness

But now the question is, how do we guide our children who understand the birds and the bees and God's good design for sex when those who are close to us are walking through situations of brokenness?

For this questioner, what happens when there's a situation of pregnancy through rape? What happens when someone close to us has an unwed pregnancy? What happens when someone close to us decides to live with their significant other? What happens when someone close to us walks through a divorce? What happens when someone close to us enters a same-sex relationship or goes through a gender transition?

These are all forms of brokenness, sexual brokenness, in our world. So how do we help prepare our kids when they have an understanding of God's good design for sexuality?

Three Questions for Any Tough Conversation

I think there is a three-step formula to tackle any tough conversation with our kids, including tough conversations I may not have even thought of or mentioned already. No matter what topic we're talking through, when we're talking about brokenness in the area of sexuality, I think there are three questions we can walk through with our kids:

1. What has God designed that is good?
2. How has sin corrupted this design?
3. How has Jesus redeemed and will one day restore what sin has corrupted?

If you can walk through these three questions, you can present this topic to your child in a way that's not going to overwhelm them, but will help them think biblically.

The great thing about this approach is that it's a sandwich approach. First, you're looking at the foundation: What has God designed that's good? So you're starting off with the goodness. Then you cover the sinful brokenness. And then you end with the redeemed, restored goodness. What you're focusing on mostly is God's goodness. And that's a way we can approach any of these topics without overwhelming our kids.

Walking Through the Three Questions With Your Kids

So when we think about the questioner's question, how do you sit down and have a conversation with your children about the fact that their unwed aunt is pregnant, and it came about through no decision of her own, but through rape?

What Has God Designed That Is Good?

The first thing you want to ask is, what has God designed that is good? In this case, it's sex and babies.

To start off this conversation, if you have baby books for your kids, take out their baby books. Or if you just have pictures on your phone, go through your kids' baby photos and talk through so many of the fun things from when they were growing up.

Review God's design for how babies are made. You can say, "Can you remember when we talked through how babies are made? How are babies made? That's right." And talk through those details again.

Then, as you're looking at the pictures, talk about the goodness of God's design for every baby. As you're looking through their baby pictures, talk about how they are fearfully and wonderfully made, that every baby is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. Just spend some time enjoying looking through those baby pictures with your kids.

That's the foundation of goodness: What has God designed that is good?

How Has Sin Corrupted This Design?

The next question you're going to look at is, how has sin corrupted this design?

That's when you'll want to have the conversation and say, "God designed it so that when a husband and wife have sex, sometimes it would result in a baby. And that's such a wonderful gift. But not every baby is born into a family with a mommy and daddy who are married to each other."

Then explain that because of sin, sometimes rather than viewing sex as the special act God gave a husband and a wife to seal the marriage covenant, people who are not married choose to have sex.

Then you can take it one step further and explain that sometimes one person might decide that they want to have sex, and they force someone who is not married to them to have sex with them. In that case, both people did not sin. It's just the person who forced the other person to have sex with them who sinned.

You can choose to use the word rape if you think it's appropriate. I would recommend not using that word with a child who is six and under. Maybe once your child is seven or older, you can introduce that term. I recommend not using it with younger children just because you don't want them to walk around using that term when they have only a very, very basic understanding of what it is.

The next part in explaining the brokenness is that you can explain that this happened to their aunt: Someone had sex with her when she did not want to have sex with them, and now she is going to have a baby. You can explain that what this person did was wrong. It was a sin against God. It was a sin against your aunt.

But then you can explain that their aunt did not sin. She did not do anything wrong in this. And explain that the baby did not sin either.

Go back to that truth of the goodness, that babies are a gift from God. Babies are always a gift from God. So present this baby as a good gift, a new little cousin.

How Has Jesus Redeemed and Will One Day Restore What Sin Has Corrupted?

Now you've gone through the first foundational layer of the goodness that God has designed, and how sin has corrupted it. Next, you'll want to look at how Jesus has redeemed and will one day restore what sin has corrupted.

The first thing I would focus on again is the baby and the goodness of this new little life. You can explain, "Even though what happened to your aunt was terrible, even though it was a sin against God and it was a sin against her, God has given our family this gift of new life. There is a new baby coming. There is a new little cousin. And that is such a gift. This baby is fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image."

Then you can talk about God's ultimate and final redemption. You can say, "One day God is going to return and make heaven and earth new." If you want to, you can pull out Revelation 21 and read verses 1–5 about the new heaven and the new earth. And you can say, "When God makes heaven and earth new, he's going to wipe away every tear from our eyes. There's going to be no more crying or sadness or pain. There's going to be no more sinning against God and sinning against others. When Jesus returns, he is going to make all things new, and he's going to return all things to their perfect goodness."

So you have that three-step conversation: What has God designed that is good? How has sin corrupted it? How has Jesus redeemed and will one day restore what sin has corrupted?

Close by Inviting Questions

Then I recommend closing the conversation by asking your children if they have any questions.

If they have questions, one thing I always recommend, no matter what question your child asks you, is to affirm the question. Even if it's off the wall, even if it's strange, even if you are horrified by the question they ask you, you want to affirm their question and tell them how thankful you are that they asked it, so that they know you are the right person to come to with any questions they have.

Now, if your child asks you a question that you're not sure would be appropriate to answer, or you don't know how to answer, or you don't know how to even think through it biblically, I recommend saying, "I am so grateful that you asked me this question. I'm so thankful that you're trying to think through this according to the Bible. You know what, I'm going to need a little bit more time to answer this question. So tomorrow we're going to come back and we're going to talk through this."

What you've just done is affirm their question and buy yourself 24 more hours. Talk with your spouse about it. Talk with a good friend about it. Talk with a trusted counselor about it. Pray about it, and search the Scriptures so that you can get a good answer, or even figure out whether or not it's appropriate to answer that question. And explain to your child again that they can always come to you with any question, and that you're so happy when they come to you with their questions.

Prepare Your Kids to Keep the Details Private

Then you'll want to prepare your child that the details you just discussed with them are not details they should discuss with other people.

You can explain, "Remember, this baby is such good news. It's such a gift that we have this new life in our family. But what happened to your aunt is very sad for her. So, you know what? We're not going to talk with her about what happened, because she has other people talking with her about this." But affirm, "You can talk with me about this anytime you want to. You can always come and ask me questions."

So you're preparing them. This is not something they're going to talk about with their aunt or with other people, but you are the appropriate person to come to, and you're always happy to talk about this with them.

Focus on Excitement Over the Baby

Then I recommend that you focus on excitement over the arrival of the baby. Maybe you draw pictures for the baby. Maybe you have your kids help you pick out shower gifts for the baby. Maybe you make a homemade gift together.

Focus on excitement so that in this situation, they're not focused on the brokenness in it, but on how God's design is good for new life and how Jesus will one day fully redeem this situation.

Wait Until the Pregnancy Is Public

Also, just something that particularly relates to this situation: I would recommend that you not have this conversation until the pregnancy is either made public or it's obvious.

As those of you who have worked with children under the age of seven know, at those early ages, whatever comes into a child's mind usually comes out of their mouth. If your sister-in-law is only eight weeks pregnant right now, she might not have made an official announcement to others yet, and she's probably not showing yet.

So I would recommend you wait until it's public knowledge, until everyone knows that she's pregnant. This way you're not running the risk of having one of your children spill the beans, so to speak, with someone who knows your sister-in-law but doesn't yet know the details of the situation. That would be my recommendation in this situation: Just wait until the pregnancy is made public before you have this conversation with your child.

Whatever Situation You're Walking Through

For anyone else who's listening and isn't walking through this particular situation: Whatever situation you are walking through or will one day walk through, remember the same three steps. Look at what God has designed that is good, how sin has corrupted this design, and how Jesus has redeemed and will one day restore what sin has corrupted.

It doesn't make every conversation easy, but it makes them easier, and it makes them biblically focused, which is what we want for our kids.

A Prayer for This Family

Before we wrap up, I want to take a minute to pray over this questioner and this whole situation, because I know it's a really hard one. Take a moment to pray with me.

God, we thank you for who you are, and we thank you that we can trust you and that you are sovereign. Sometimes, Lord, we just do not understand what you allow or why you allow it. And we thank you for the examples in your Word, when those in the Psalms did not understand what you were allowing or why you were allowing it.

Lord, I pray over this questioner. I pray that you would guide him or her as they are talking with their children, that you would give them wisdom, that you would give them the words to say. I pray that you would comfort them as they're grieving what has happened.

And I pray for this young woman who was raped, Lord, and is now pregnant. We thank you for her life. We thank you for giving her the courage to do what is right, to choose life. Lord, we ask that you would comfort her, that you would provide healing for her. Lord, we pray for a healthy pregnancy and delivery.

And we pray over this child, Lord. We pray that he or she would come to know you at a young age. Lord, we ask that they would seek and serve you all the days of their life, and that you would use their life mightily to point many people toward you.

We love you, Lord, and pray all of these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you so much to this questioner for writing in and helping us all have an opportunity to think about how we help our kids think biblically about situations of deep brokenness.

If you'd like help starting the first of many conversations about God's good design for sex, take a look at "The Talk"...Made Easy. If you have a question you'd like answered on a future episode of the Foundation Worldview Podcast, you can submit it at foundationworldview.com/podcast. And you can sign up for our newsletter below.

As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is the same as always, and I think it's particularly applicable today with this question: that no matter the situation you and the children God has placed in your care are walking through, 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.