MountainWings A MountainWings Moment
#9173 Wings Over The Mountains of Life



The Birds and the Bees
===============

I am the youth pastor of a Christian church.

My oldest child is 11 years old; and recently, I noticed a tiny
coat of hair growing over his top lip and body odor under his
arms.

I knew it was time to talk to him about puberty and what the
past generations called "the birds and the bees."

The very name of the subject, and its distance from its subject
matter, gives a hint at the difficulty parents face talking
about it.

I have talked with my kids about some of everything, but as I
prepared myself to talk with my oldest child about this issue,
I found that I was a little uncomfortable and didn't know
exactly where to start.

I thought to myself, if this is uncomfortable for me and I'm
the youth pastor, I can imagine other parents may have an even
harder time.

After about 30 minutes, I had an outline of how I wanted to
talk with my son. I knew that school may teach a lot of it, but
I felt as though this lesson on a very personal and important
part of life should come from me. After all, it is about the
technicalities of starting a family so it should come from the
family.

Many youth first learn about sex from their friends or an
improper medium such as pornographic material. That's not the
way that I wanted my child to learn of it so I chose to talk
with him as the first source. As the saying goes, "first
impressions are lasting ones."

I called him into my office the same day and had the talk with
him. He asked questions and the whole thing went better than I
thought. When I asked him how much of the talk he already knew
he answered, "About half."

I started the talk with a short video that went through the
most uncomfortable parts.

Many parents don't have the talk because they don't know what to
say and where to start. I outlined my talk (video source included)
so that others may have a starting point, and it will hopefully
make the difference in whether they even have the talk or not.

Keep in mind that this talk represents the belief system and
values from my personal home so feel free to edit the one page
outline to reflect the values and beliefs of your home.

It is not given for critiquing; it is given for you to make it
your own and include what you feel it should contain.

If you don't have a child in or headed into puberty, then I'm
sure you know someone who does and needs this outline, so feel
free to forward this issue to them. You never know what a
difference you could make in their family.

The uncomfortable nature of this talk makes us procrastinate
too long many times and our children end up learning things on
their own from the wrong sources. Most experts suggest this talk
be given between the ages of 8-13.

With this in mind, if you feel your child is the right age and
maturity level, please don't wait, and act now before they do.

Just so you know, this outline will help me in the future too
because I have six more children after my oldest. All seven
were conceived in the first 12 years of my marriage. I guess I
should know a little something about the birds and the bees by
now (and its consequences).

I have chosen to wait to talk with my 8 and 9 year old until
they are more mature or inquire.

Here is the outline, please share it with those who need it:
http://www.mountainwings.com/past/puberty_talk.pdf

~A MountainWings Original by James Bronner, father of seven and
author of "Bedroom Talk - How To Turn Your Marriage Into A
Lifelong Love Affair" at www.Hitbooks.com.


Forward this issue to a friend or send them the link below:
http://www.mountainwings.com/past/9173.htm

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