Do you go through stages where you keep talking about the same topic again and again, wrestling with it until you finally resolve it? For me lately, that topic has been how to teach sexuality to my children. There’s such a tightrope to walk between doing too little and too much. Talk about it too little (or too late), and kids will learn all their attitudes from peers, movies, TV and ads. That’s disastrous, considering the way modern culture has both trivialized sex and labeled it as indispensable to life and happiness. But hit it too hard, and kids are likely to develop an unhealthy attitude equating sexuality with sin.

My oldest is five years old. I’m very far from an expert. But this I do believe:

• The stakes in this go way beyond contraception, NFP, and abstinence till marriage. The central truth, I think, of the Theology of the Body, is that we are holistic beings: everything we do with our bodies sends out ripples to everything else. We can’t serve God with one part of who we are tied behind our back and expect it not to affect everything else.
• The first step to teaching a healthy sexuality is to speak of the body with respect. I expanded on that theme about that on my own blog; I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts.
• You can’t base teaching on sexuality on fear. Fear of pregnancy, fear of STDs, fear of Hell—this doesn’t work. The only way kids can grow up with a Godly world view on sexuality is to make it about love and respect: for God, for self, for others.
• You have to start early. Everything a person learns in his or her lifetime is learned step by step, organically, at such a snail’s pace that they don’t even realize it’s happening. I remember thinking that I never once learned anything in English class. It was all old news to me. But looking back, I know I was learning, because I can see the way I write changing. That is the best way to learn something—so organically that you aren’t even aware of it.

You can’t wait to talk about contraception, birth control and the Theology of the Body until couples are engaged. By then, it’s too late. You can’t even wait until puberty. If a girl’s first introduction to her sexuality comes when blood is gushing out of her body, her image of sexuality is going to be centered around a sense of disgust. Not the way I want my children to feel!

As an NFP teacher in a diocese where NFP usage is not widespread, I know that my children aren’t going to get this message by osmosis. It’s up to me and my husband. The message runs so counter to the culture that we have to teach a whole different way of talking about human relations and sexuality. And that’s not going to happen without conscious effort and specific planning.

So I ask the more experienced mothers today: What concrete examples can you offer to those of us following in your footsteps, on how to teach our children sexuality without leaning on the word “sin”?

Kathleen Basi can be found writing at www.kathleenbasi.com.

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Tagged as: sex ed, sexuality, Theology of the Body