This is a more detailed book you can turn to when you want to discuss puberty, sex, marriage and some of the consequences of each with a Christian mind-set with your older child.
Aimed at children aged 8-11, we decided to read this with our son when he turned 9. My husband sat down with him a few nights a week over a few weeks and they would read a chapter together. It is written like a play – so the child reads out a question/comment and the parent/s read out the answers.
It addresses topics like:
- Why do people have sex?
- Sex outside of marriage
- What does God say about sex?
- Puberty
- Why can’t I do that? (includes pornography)
- Homosexuality
- AIDS/sexually transmitted diseases
- Sexual abuse
The nights when they read together became quite a special time between father and son and they both looked forward to it. Considering the topics covered it also gave us the opportunity to see if there was anything he wanted to tell us or talk about, and the freedom to ask questions he might not otherwise have done.
Having read through it myself, it is a good resource. My husband also thought it was good as he read it with our son. There were only a few things he wouldn’t have said the way they did. I felt some of it was a little outdated (it’s 15 years old)and I suspect the information on AIDS/STDs might need to be updated, and considering the world today it probably needs to include a bit more detail on internet risks. It also didn’t have much detail on how boys change through puberty.
However what we discovered and we were thrilled about is that our son kept saying (of the more detailed parts): “I have never heard about any of this”.
What we explained to him was that most of it he didn’t need to know in detail yet, but there will be times where people he knows will talk about and we wanted him to know the truth from us first and that he could always talk to us about it whenever he wanted.
So, we have decided that age 9 is a good time to address these things in depth and I will do so with our daughters at the same age.
We will also come back to it all again with him every year or so, perhaps with another book aimed at the same age group.
2 comments:
Thanks for your recommendations so far. I bought 'God made your body' this week to give to my son as he starts big school next year. When he started pre school, we bought him 'Your Body belongs to you' by Cornelia Spelman. It was suitable for his age (4) with appropriate text and pictures.
Thanks for this review. We read the first picture book in the kids book series to SP and were thinking of getting the second one now he's nearly 5, but had somehow missed that there is a parent book too. It's now on the list...
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