Talking to Kids About Crushes: A Biblical Approach

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In today's episode, we address a parent's concern about handling their nine-year-old daughter's first crush. How should you discuss godly relationships without pushing your child away? Join us as we explore effective ways to talk about young crushes, fostering open communication and guiding your child with biblical wisdom.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello, friends. Today's podcast question says, my nine-year-old daughter recently mentioned she has a crush. We discussed this issue and what a godly marriage should look like, but she didn't want to talk about this anymore. Should I have approached this in a different way? I don't want her to hide stuff from me, but I don't know how to talk through this. Good question. We knew that as our kids grow and mature, they're going to have crushes some of them as young as the ages of four and five, and some of them when they're a little older, like 8, 9, 10. But we want to know how can we talk through these things, and that's the question we're going to be answering on today's podcast.

My name is Elizabeth Urbanowicz. I'm the host of the Foundation Worldview Podcast where our goal is to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview. If you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. Now, as I read this question, I was thinking of a mistake that I actually consistently made in teaching and then also mistake that I saw some parents make. Most of my teaching years were spent in a third grade classroom at a Christian school and in third grade, many students developed crushes on one another and they would frequently want to talk about those. And the mistake that I made is I didn't want to focus students to focus on this because obviously at the age of eight or nine, they're not in a position to be dating to be thinking about marriage, and so I just wanted to get their attention somewhere else. And so anytime a student would talk about a crush, I would say, "Nope, you can't even think about dating until you're the age of 20, so we're not going to talk about this." And that really wasn't the best thing to do because rather than pointing students to the goodness of God's design and how this crush pointed them towards that goodness, I was just encouraging them to suppress those feelings, which that's not a wise thing. Now, on the opposite end of the spectrum, I saw some parents make some very unwise decisions and rather than making my mistake, which was suppressing, having students suppress their thoughts and feelings and desires where these parents were actually encouraging these desires in an unhealthy way, I had one mom in particular who I think she was just living vicariously through her daughter and she was always encouraging her daughter to have crushes on different boys in the classroom. And now I didn't address this as directly as I should have, but I did gently encourage the mom, we just want the kids to grow and mature at a healthy rate. We don't want them to focus on crushes in third grade, but these were kind of two opposite end of the spectrum, which really weren't healthy, my just suppression and not addressing these issues in a biblical way. And then this moms encouraging these kind of behaviors and desires in an unhealthy way.

And so what we want to do instead of either suppressing or overly encouraging is talking to our kids about God's good design for marriage and for family. If you haven't yet checked out our latest curriculum release, which is called God's Good Design, and it's a curriculum for kids ages four plus, that lays a solid biblical foundation for understanding God's good design for gender and marriage and family, highly encourage you to check that out, to help you start having these conversations with your children. And really the goal of this curriculum and the goal of exposing our kids to God's good design is just having it be an ongoing conversation with our children about how we see God's good design, how it relates to them, and then deviations from God's good design that this shouldn't be a one and done conversation. It should be an ongoing one that we're having with our children.

So I think when we're thinking about our children developing crushes, we want to discuss with them and make clear that being drawn to a member of the opposite sex is a good thing because that is part of God's good design. That in order for us to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, part of that is starting families and families are started within the context of marriage because that's the boundaries that the healthy God-given boundaries that God has placed around sex and sexuality. So when our children come to us and say that they have a crush on someone, we can say, isn't it so wonderful that God designed us so that we would have a desire to be with someone from the opposite sex, that this is one day, this desire that you have is one day going to lead you into a marriage most likely. Okay, so next time your child brings up a crush, highly encourage you to use this as an opportunity to celebrate the goodness of God's design, that these feelings are a good thing.

Now, we also want to help our children know you know what? Right now at the age that you are now, are you going to be able to get married anytime soon? No, you're not going to be able to get married anytime soon. So for right now, we're not going to focus on these feelings. When these feelings come up, you can thank God for them, but we're not going to sit down and daydream about this person, or we're not going to try to spend all of our time with this person. We're going to be thankful for these feelings and we're going to not focus on them just to set up some healthy boundaries to recognize these are good feelings, they're from God. This is the way God designed the world, but because we're not at an age where we can get married yet, we're not going to focus on them.

Then something else I would encourage you to do is just regularly talk about qualities that your spouse has that you're thankful for. Qualities that make them a good spouse, if they're patient, if they're faithful, if they're kind, if they're very servant hearted, if they're funny, all of these things that make them a good spouse. And so just have these be part of your regular conversations. Like if the person who wrote this question in is a woman, if your husband took out the trash one morning to just say to your daughter, oh, doesn't daddy have such a servant heart? Daddy is always looking for ways that he can help us. I'm so grateful that daddy has a servant heart or if the person writing this question in, if you're a man and your wife is very patient and loving to say to your daughter, aren't you so grateful that mommy is so patient with us? She always shows us love, even when we're really hard to love sometimes. So just bring up these things, these qualities that you appreciate about your spouse. And then when these conversations of crushes come up, you can talk with your child and say, you know what? One day when you get married, you're going to want to look for someone who is just like daddy, or if it's a boy who is just like mommy. Or maybe you don't need to say just like, but you want to bring up some of these qualities that your spouse has. When you go to get married one day, you're going to want to look for someone who's really joyful and kindhearted just like your mom, or when you go to get married one day, you're going to want to look for someone who is really patient and faithful just like your dad. And so just to get them thinking about these crushes in the context of one day, these feelings should lead to a God honoring marriage.

I think it's also important to discuss with our kids just a game plan for when they are attracted to others. When you have a crush on someone, what should you do? I think just a really easy four step game plan would be: first, share those feelings with God. Share those feelings with God. Say, you know what? God, I really like this person, and to share with God what you like about this person. Then share those feelings with you, let you know like, Hey, I like this other person, so that way you can know and you can help them navigate this, then stop together and thank God, thank God for these feelings and the way that these feelings will probably one day lead your son or your daughter to get married and maybe have a family of their own. And then fourth, encourage them to be friends with the person and to treat them kindly just like they would anyone else, not to try to spend all their time with them, not to ignore them, but just to be kind to them and treat them like they would any other person. So again, those four steps. First, share those feelings with God. Share those feelings with you, thank God. And then be friends with the person and treat them like they would anyone else. So just so our kids have a game plan for knowing, okay, when I do have a crush on someone, when I am attracted to someone, what can I do at this age.

Would also encourage the person who wrote this in, don't pressure your daughter to share with you. Because a lot of times what we do when we pressure people into something, we actually encourage them to build up a wall between us and them because we're pressuring them to share something that they might not want to share. So my encouragement to the person who wrote in this question and then just to all of us who are working with the children, God has placed in our care to continue fostering a positive relationship, to focus on fostering relationship, to make sure that relationship isn't hindered by sin, that when there is sin on their part or our part, that there's confession and repentance to make sure that we are just delighting in these children that God has given us, that they know that we love them unconditionally, that we are proud of them, that we are pleased with them, that we enjoy spending time with them, not as their friend because not their friend. We're in the role of parent, but to know that we love them and we value them and we appreciate them. So to continue building this relationship and then let them share as they are comfortable.

Now, some personalities are going to be more prone to sharing than others are. I remember several years ago, I was reading Andrew Peterson's book, Adorning the Dark, and in the book he said something that I was like, oh my goodness, yes, I've thought this and I felt this way before. He shared how when he was growing up, he would write his thoughts down in a journal and he would also write music and do art, and how he didn't really like sharing that with his parents because he felt like his art in those thoughts and feelings in the journal were such an intimate part of him that it almost felt like his parents were looking at him naked if they looked at his art or read his journal. And I know I am definitely more of a private person, and I felt that way before too, that there are times where things that I share with God I don't want to share with any other person, not because they're heinous or horrendous or anything, but just because they're such an intimate part of me that I don't really want to share them with anyone else. And so depending on your child's personality, they may be very open and forthright with you, or they may not be more of a private person. And so in those situations, you're just going to need wisdom. You don't want to try to draw things out of them that they don't want to share because you don't want to hinder that relationship. But then there might be situations where you have an inkling that something is going on and you are going to have to dig deeper. Now, when we're talking about crushes, we don't need our child to admit that they have a crush on someone. We can pretty much tell by the way that they're responding to someone, and if they're not willing and comfortable sharing that with us, that's okay. If we're talking about a situation where we suspect some kind of an abuse, that is a situation where we need to dive down and make sure that we figure out what is going on. But when we're talking about a situation like crushes, that's a situation where we don't need to go fishing for information. We just need to continue fostering a positive gospel centered relationship with our children, and then let them share as they feel comfortable.

Again, just want to reiterate, the focus of this should be grounding our kids in the truth of God's good design, that they understand that when they start to develop romantic feelings for someone, that those feelings can be a good thing because it's those feelings that will eventually lead them to pursue marriage with someone which is part of God's good design, and eventually start a family within the context of marriage, which is also part of God's good design.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode. But as always, my prayer for you as we leave time together is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves that 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.