It’s never easy to have “The Talk”. You know, the “Sex Talk”. And puberty. Let’s not forget that thing that causes our sweet children to turn grumpy and hormonal. Talking to kids about sex doesn’t have to be hard or incredibly uncomfortable, especially since there are some great resources available to help parents like me along.
I’m all about having books and resources to help me through these tough topics. Throughout the years of educating our children, we have found some really great books to read with our kids to teach about sex, personal safety, and puberty. I’m not talking about tossing a book in our children’s rooms and hoping they read and understand. I’m more about finding resources that we can work through together that will help facilitate some wonderful conversations. Below, I’ll outline the ones that have helped us out the most and share which age group they are most appropriate.
Books Recommendations
First off, I really like the 3 books by Luke and Trisha Wilkerson. They are made for the different stages from child to teen and they easily walk parents through what to do and say. They are Biblically based and offer scripture readings to go along with the studies. We have used and/or are currently using them with our children. You’ll notice that these also have excellent reviews on Amazon. I strongly recommend getting all 3 and using them as your children age. My husband has used them in talks with our son and even though they were difficult topics, he found that getting through them was much easier with the books to guide.
The Talk: 7 Lessons to Introduce Your Child to Biblical Sexuality is geared toward children ages 6-10. Although I think some 6 year olds can handle it, we tend to wait until they are on the higher end of the age group for this one as it’s pretty detailed. I think it depends on your parenting style and your child’s maturity on when you want to start this one.
Changes: 7 Biblical Lessons to Make Sense of Puberty was written for parents to read with children ages 8 to 12 years old. The book also turns to scripture to help explain how God made everything wonderful, including our bodies. This one has been very helpful in explaining body changes to our kids.
Relationships: 11 Lessons to Give Kids a Greater Understanding of Biblical Sexuality is geared toward 11-14 year olds and consists of 11 studies. It covers many things that a teen may be wondering and helps bring them to light and keep the communication lines open.
Another one that I think is a must for any home is Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, which discusses pornography and what to do if you come across it. We did this as a study with all of our children. They actually were really interested in hearing about this and hopefully it preps them for when/if they come across anything by accident. The statistics regarding kids coming across porn by accident are quite shocking!
Other books worth mentioning to check out for the younger ones are these, which we also own and read from time to time:
I Said No! A Kid-to-kid Guide to Keeping Private Parts Private
God Made All of Me: A Book to Help Children Protect Their Bodies
I’m sure there are many more great resources as well for talking to kids about sex. We have found these ones to be particularly helpful for our family and it has turned into a not-so-taboo subject. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about some of your favorites or ways that you have found to bring about discussion with your kids about sex.
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