The Right Age for 'The Talk'

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Today's podcast question says, "What is the right age to talk to my children about sex and the truth on the topic of how babies are born? I do not want my children to find out from others."

Transcript

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

Hello friends. Today's question says, what is the right age to talk to my children about sex and the truth on the topic of how babies are born? I do not want my children to find out from others. This is such a good question because as the questioner says, we don't want our kids to find out the truth about God's good design for sex and sexuality from others. We want to be able to have that conversation with them. So today we're going to dive down deep looking into what is the appropriate age to have this talk for the first time, and then why is it so important to have that talk at that age? Now, for those of you who have followed the Foundation Worldview ministry for a while, you probably already know what I'm going to say, is that our consistent recommendation at Foundation Worldview is that the first talk about gender and sexuality, that that happens at the age of three or four. And so we're going to dive down deep looking into why is it so important to have this first conversation at the age of three or four.

For those of you who haven't met me before, my name is Elizabeth Urbanowicz. I'm the host of the Foundation Worldview Podcast, and our goal in this podcast 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. And 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, for those of you who have never heard our recommendation of starting the sex talks at age three or four, you may be thinking, oh my goodness, why in the world would you recommend having a talk about sex at such a young age? Because typically, the first sex talk happens somewhere between the ages of eight to 12, which really, that's too late to have that conversation. Now, if you haven't had the conversation yet and you have children between the ages of eight and 12, would recommend that you have the first conversation about sex as soon as possible. And now there's several reasons why we recommend this age of three or four, and then if you're already past that age, why you have the sex talk as soon as possible.

So the first reason why we recommend that is it just makes the conversation less awkward. We're probably always going to feel slightly awkward when we talk to our children about sex and sexuality. However, at the age of three or four, our children are not going to feel awkward about it because talking about body parts, like learning about new things, that's just part of being a three or a 4-year-old. And so it's not going to seem like a big deal to them, even if we still feel like this is awkward.

Now, my own experience with the first sex talk that my mom had with me, you may not believe this, but actually the first sex talk my mom had with me was actually at the age of two, which is a little bit younger than we recommend just because some children at the age of two, they're, they're not even necessarily talking yet, so they might not be ready to have this first conversation. But my brother was born, my younger brother was born right before my third birthday. So when I was on the upper end of the age of two, and my mom wanted to be honest with me about where babies came from and how babies were made. Now, so did she include graphic detail of everything? I don't think so. I don't actually really remember that first sex talk, but I just remember knowing when my brother was born that I knew where babies came from. And I know for me growing up, it really did make it much more natural for me to go to my mom with questions about sex and to be honest about things because she had started the conversation so young.

So if we wait until our children are going through puberty and they're in that preteen phase, they are already feeling awkward enough. It is so hard to make the transition from child to adults because so many things about the child body in adolescents are changing. Their hormones are changing, so they're, especially females are experiencing these really strong surges of emotions that they don't understand. For boys, they don't naturally understand what's going on with their body and the things that are changing. And then for girls, their bodies are changing from looking very much like a boy's body to being a distinctly woman, being a womanly body. And so it's just an awkward time. It's difficult with all of the changes that are going on physically and chemically, hormonally. And so to add into that mix to have the first sex talk, that just makes it even more awkward and uncomfortable for both parties. So that's the first reason why we recommend having the first sex talk at the age of three or four. For children that young it is not an awkward conversation.

The second reason why we recommend having the first sex talk at the age of three or four is by having the conversation with them first, we our setting up ourselves as the experts for them to come to us with their questions. And so there's this principle that whoever we hear something from first, we view that person as the expert. Now, if you're wondering, Elizabeth, where's the research behind that? I actually don't have research behind that. I just know from observing myself and other people, that whoever we hear something from, first we view that person as the expert.

For example, when I was growing up, my dad was the first person who ever taught me about painting something, how to paint a wall. He was the first person that ever taught me about changing oil in a car. He was the first person that ever taught me something about fixing a toilet or a sink. Now, is my dad actually an expert in those things? No. My dad is not a plumber. He's not a carpenter, he's not a general contractor. So while he knows more about those things, even than I still do, my dad is not actually an expert. However, to this day, when something goes wrong in my house, before I turn to YouTube, before I turn to my neighborhood Facebook page, before I call my plumber or my electrician, I will call my dad. And why is that? Because in my mind, my dad is the expert on this topic of fixing things, even though he's not really an expert in that though he does know more than me because he was the first person to introduce me to those things, I view him as the expert.

When we are able to have those conversations with our kids first, they're going to view us as the person that they should come to with their questions. Now, those of you who are familiar with the Foundation Worldview ministry, you know that we do not recommend in every area of life setting ourselves up as experts that we want to help our kids understand we don't have the answers to everything, but we can help them figure out where to go to get the answers. And so similar with this, we don't have to present ourselves as the expert with all things regarding gender and sexuality. However, we definitely want our kids to come to us with their question. So even if we don't have the answer, we can say, you know what? That is a great question. I've never thought of that before. I'm not sure I have the answer. But you know, why don't we find an answer together? Because even if we don't have the answer, what's better? Is it better for our kids to come to us and we don't know the answer, but we can help 'em find the answer? Or is it better for our kids to go to their peers or to go to some other adult in their life or to go to Google? Clearly, it's better for our children to come to us and then for us to help them find the answer to their question. So that's the second reason. Okay, so first reason, it makes the conversation less awkward. Second, we're setting them up to come to us with their question. So when they have a question about gender or sexuality, they're coming to us.

The third reason is we want to make sure that we are establishing a positive biblical theology for God's good design for gender and sexuality before our children encounter deviations from that good design. So we want to have had a conversation with them about the goodness of sex and sex within the context of a one man, one woman marriage and sex leading to babies before our kids encounter deviations from that good design. Because the first conversation that we have with our children about sex is really going to set the tone for their view about sex. And so if the first conversation that we have with them about sex is after they have just encountered a homosexual couple or after they've encountered something with transgenderism on tv, if that's the first conversation that we have with them about God's good design, what we're doing is we're having to backtrack and we're having to correct something that was presented in a sinful form. And so therefore, our children's natural thoughts regarding gender and sexuality are going to be negative if the first conversation we have with them is one where we're having to correct a misunderstanding. So we first want to make sure that we are able to establish the positive theology before our kids encounter deviations.

Now, this is exactly what we do in our God's Good Design curriculum here at Foundation Worldview. God's Good Design is a curriculum that actually lays out the positive case for God's good design for gender and sexuality for kids ages four on up. Now, in that curriculum, we don't go through the mechanics of sex. We talk in the instructor video before that that parents should have already had a sex talk with their children before they go through that curriculum. But what we do is we help build a firm biblical foundation for the concepts of gender and marriage and family, for kids for on up. So I highly recommend that you check out that curriculum because that's going to help actually give you some grounding, the biblical grounding for helping your kids understand God's good design for gender and for sexuality.

Now, if you're thinking, Elizabeth, there's no way I could explain the mechanics of sex to my kids before taking them through that curriculum. We have another recommended resource for you. We are in no way affiliated with this resource. However, the Birds and the Bees Course is a 10 lesson course online from another company that's available that just kind of walks you through how to have these conversations with your kids step by step. So if you're thinking, I have no idea how to start the sex talk with my children, highly recommend you check out the Birds and the Bees course.

Okay, so we've talked through three reasons why it's wise to have the sex talk with our children at age three or four, or if your children are already past that age, why to have it as soon as possible. One, that age makes the conversation less awkward. Two, we're setting them up to come to us with their questions. Three, we want to establish the positive biblical theology before they encounter deviations from it.

And then the fourth reason is that our kids will most likely hear about sex earlier than we imagine. We're probably thinking, oh, they're probably not going to hear anything until they're maybe eight or nine years old. Now, is that possible? That is possible. However, we don't want to bank on that because chances are our kids are going to hear about sex much earlier than that.

I think about myself and that I was fortunate in that my mom talked to me about God's good design for sex when I was two. And it was an ongoing conversation. And when I was in my kindergarten class at the age of five, multiple times throughout the year, kids in my class talked about sex. And now I already had the biblical foundation for understanding that sex was only for marriage, that it was a good thing, that it was a special thing, that it led to the creation of babies. So I had that foundation. And then when I heard about sex in school, I was able to go home, tell my mom what I had heard, and she was able to talk through what I had heard at school from a biblical perspective. And she didn't have to do any backtracking because she had already laid that foundation.

And so our kids might be hearing about these things on the playground. They might be hearing about them at school. They might be, if they're homeschooled, they might be hearing about them at church. Who knows where they're going to encounter kids that are talking about sex. And so we want to make sure that we have had a conversation with them before they hear about it for the first time.

And then even thinking about deviations from God's good design. I'm thinking back to my mom used to teach preschool when I was in around, I think it was my middle school years. My mom taught preschool just in the mornings. And one day, for some reason I had off of school, but my mom was still teaching pre-K. So I went with her to her pre-K class, and I will never forget that during free play time, there was one little boy in the classroom who called my mom over and he goes, "Look, Ms. Karen." And he had two Barbies that he had taken all the clothes off of them. He put them on top of one another, and he goes, "Look, Ms. Karen! Gay." So here was a four-year-old, and this is way back. I mean, this is probably like 1998, somewhere around then. So it wasn't even when the gender and sexual revolution was so popular. But this kid had obviously been exposed to things that he should not have been exposed to, and then he brought that into the pre-K class with him. So just think about what kids are exposed to nowadays when there's a pride parade on blues clues, when Mr. Ratburn on the PBS show, Arthur gets married to another man. With all of these things that kids are exposed to nowadays, even if our kids aren't exposed to them just by being exposed to other kids, our kids are going to be secondarily exposed to this. So we want to make sure that we have had the first conversation with them before they encounter this in the world.

So again, four reasons I gave for starting to have this sex talk at age three or four. One, it makes the conversation less awkward. Two, we're setting them up to come to us with their questions. Three, we want to establish the positive biblical theology before they encounter deviations from God's good design. And four, they will most likely hear about sex earlier than we imagine. Also, just as a reminder, if you're thinking, I don't know how to have these conversations with my kids, highly recommend that you check out The Birds and the Bees Course just to help give you some language for that. Also, highly recommend that you check out our God's Good Design course because that is a 30 lesson video series that does all of the teaching for you, that you sit down alongside your little one and just work with him or her on learning what is God's good design for gender, for sex, for marriage, and for family.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode. But as always, my prayer for you as we leave this 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.