- Like
- Digg
- Del
- Tumblr
- VKontakte
- Buffer
- Love This
- Odnoklassniki
- Meneame
- Blogger
- Amazon
- Yahoo Mail
- Gmail
- AOL
- Newsvine
- HackerNews
- Evernote
- MySpace
- Mail.ru
- Viadeo
- Line
- Comments
- Yummly
- SMS
- Viber
- Telegram
- Subscribe
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Kakao
- LiveJournal
- Yammer
- Edgar
- Fintel
- Mix
- Instapaper
- Copy Link
Please tell me that I’m not the only one who broke out in a cold sweat when thinking about have THE talk with my children. Some may say that we should have done it earlier, but with fact that our oldest is 11 and we are homeschooling, we felt we had a little bit of a buffer. A few things recently came up in conversations with our daughter that made us realize that we needed to talk to her soon and be sure that she heard the right things from us – and not bits and pieces from others.
Truth be told, I was s.c.a.r.e.d. and wanting to wait as long as possible and protect the innocence that still exists in our kids. What would I say? What would she ask? {gulp}
This past weekend, Laurianna and I made a special overnight date together, reserved a room in a nice hotel for cheap {thank you Priceline!}, and I planned a few special treats for us to just have girl time together – and have FUN!
And we did!!
Driving to the hotel, my stomach was doing flips and flops, my brain was going a million miles a second thinking of answers to questions that she might possibly have {but never did} and basically worrying about it and stressing myself out. Yes, Rick and I had been praying about the weekend and one would THINK that I would have relaxed a bit. Sigh.
One of the BEST things that we did was order Passport2Purity that is put together by Dennis and Barbara Rainey from Family Life Ministries. {It’s here that I will insert a note to say that if you are stressed about talking with your kids and not sure how to approach it with your kids, order it NOW to use together}.
The Passport2Purity Weekend Retreat Kit is hands-down a fabulous resource for parents to use and covers SO much more than just the basics. During the weekend Laurianna and I talked about friendships, peer pressure, sex, setting boundaries, keeping pure, and dating. The best part? Although many of these topics aren’t an issue yet {she’s only 11}, this weekend gave us the opportunity to talk about things before they were issues and lay some guidelines in place.
The entire weekend was laid out for us through the parent’s manual that comes in the kit and we listened to audio teachings from the Rainey’s, pausing the cds occasionally to answer questions together and have more heart-to-heart conversations. Another thing that I love about the kit, is that it includes Scripture memory songs to go along with the teachings from Seeds Family Worship Purity CD. We’ve loaded the songs onto Laurianna’s iPod just for her to listen to and memorize.
Laurianna also had a journal {included in the kit} for her to take notes in as well. Prior to the weekend, Rick and I each took time to write her a letter that she read before our weekend away. My hubby’s letter to her may have made me cry. A lot.
Our time away was just a little over 24 hours, but we really had an amazing time together laughing, sharing, and learning more about each other. Saturday afternoon Laurianna and I had a pedicure to celebrate and then went shopping together at a local antique mall for a special gift to remember our weekend – a delicate tea cup.
We decided on a tea cup so in the months and weeks to come, if she ever wants to talk to me about anything, she can pull out the tea cup and the two of us will sit down together to talk. The tea cup also was to represent how delicate her purity is and how gently we need to care for it. She was thrilled to have a special cup for her {it took us nearly an hour to find the perfect one!}.
It’s a few days after our trip away and can I tell you how EXCITED I am to have this time with McKenna in a little over a year? And for Rick to have this same time with our boys in the years to come? Thinking of our talk just makes me smile – and so thankful for the resources that are available to us!
Did you take a special weekend or time to talk with your child about sex and dating? Was there something memorable that you did together to remember the time together?
Note: This post was in no way solicited by Family Life – it’s just simply one mom and dad’s thankfulness for a fabulous resource for families to use! I love that we just need to order an additional journal for each child to use it again.
The printables shared on this site are FREE of charge unless otherwise noted, and you are welcome to download them for your personal and/or classroom use only. However, free or purchased printables are NOT to be reproduced, hosted, sold, shared, or stored on any other website or electronic retrieval system (such as Scribd or Google docs). My printables are copyright protected and I appreciate your help in keeping them that way.
If you download and use some of my printables and then blog about them, please provide a link back to my blog and let me know - I'd love to see how you are using them! Please be sure to link to the blog post or web page and not directly to the file itself. Thank you!
This is so precious! I cried when I saw the tea cup, such a beautiful concept,
I will be ordering this wonderful resource. Thank you so much for sharing such a awesome personal journey your family is on.
Have a blessed week!!
she was SO excited about the tea cup – and I picked out a special one too! Now we need to find a place to keep them SAFE from certain little boys!! :)
My husband and I have been trying to decide when THE TALK needed to happen for our son. He’s getting to the age that it makes you want them to be prepared. I am so glad that you shared this journey. I’m also glad you shared this product because I love this idea. Could you possibly tell me some of your thoughts on the actually product? Did it fit everything you wanted to talk to her about?
Thanks for posting on something this difficult. I really appreciate it. As a mother that is also a homeschooling mother (i think there are differences) this is something that needs to be taken serious. Our children need to understand what the world has against them… ♥
Kayla – Everything and more. :) They progression how the topics were handled was great: starting out with friendships and peer pressure and then moving along. The sex talk was sandwiched right in the middle. We skipped one disk {they recommend that parents listen to it before talking to their kids because it covers a few topics that don’t need to be covered, but parents may want to – pornography, etc…}.
I really appreciate their approach on dating as well and it gave Laurianna and I {and my hubby and I} a lot to consider and talk about for the upcoming years!
That is so sweet. I had “the talk” with my oldest when he was 2 and I was carrying his little brother. He wanted to know everything and wasn’t happy until he knew everything. I’ve never been scared or afraid of talking to my children about sex and dating and everything. It’s a natural part of our conversations. They ask questions and I answer them. Sometimes I’m thrown for a loop at what they want to know though. Good work mama!
I also recently had an overnight girl night with my daughter! She I also 11 and we also used passport to purity. I was extremely nervous but so thankful that I had passport to purity to help guide us along. It was a super special weekend and something that I hope she remembers.
Karen – Did you have a special gift that the two of you got? Just wondering!! :)
Your post made me cry! :) what a wonderful, special time. My daughter is 10 so gives me lots to think about!
Start planning something special for the two of you!!! Something always comes up for us, so we just put it on the calendar finally!! :)
This sounds like a product worth checking out. My little girl will be 9 soon and I want to be ready… We started with the book Princess and the Kiss already and then used “Before I was Born” from NavPress.
Jolanthe,
I would say that my children are going to live w/me forever and never date (married – not even), but I know that is not the case. We have had discussions w/our children around the TALK, but have not actually had the TALK.
I love the idea that you and Laurianna were able to take some time alone together and make it a special weekend. I’m sure that the conversations you had and the fact that you made special time will impact her and help her undertand the importance of this next step in her life.
I’ve heard about Passport2Purity, but my children were so young at the time. Time sure does fly because now, it is time. Thank you for reminding me about the retreat kit.
I love your article. My eldest daughter just turned 12, and I want to do the P2P with her very soon. I love your teacup idea! Do you have ideas for your sons for a gift?
hmmm…. a wristwatch, engraved pocketknife – or if you are looking along the teacup line – maybe a ‘manly’ mug that he can have coffee with his dad. :)
My husband and I have the same resource in hand to share with our oldest son. We just haven’t put it on the calender yet. I wanted to say that I’m a bit relieved to see that you skipped “one” disk, as I figure it is the same disk I would like to skip. :) There were just a few little comments on there that I wasn’t ready to put in his head (particularly about why sometimes the “door is locked”). He’ll be 11 in April and I’ve been putting it off because of “that” disk. Otherwise, I love, love, love the idea and we will definitely be using it. I’d be curious to know at what age others had “the talk”. We’ve had questions here and there and explained everything we felt he was ready for, but my husband is ready to lay it all out for him. I’d love some boy gift ideas too!
Susan, We may not have skipped what you think we did!! :) I’ll send you along another email, but the one that we didn’t talk about covered a few deeper topics. The way they handled the sex talk was fabulous – they didn’t gloss over it, but they way it is sandwiched in the weekend talks really was great.
I had the talk with my three older ones (same age) last year, with white board and diagrams and all!! Ours was more humorous than embarrassing (very us!!) leading to many more talks 1-2-1 in the following months. I LOVE the tea cup idea and what it represents.
Oh girl – to be a fly on the wall in your house that day!! :)
How did you decide at what age to do it? My daughter is about to turn 9 and started going through puberty just after she turned 8. I answer her questions honestly but we havent had ‘the talk’ as such.
I’d already talked with our oldest about a few things {like what happens every month for women and body changes}, but part of it was maturity and the other was a result of an acquaintance sharing things with her that could be taken waaaay out of context. Quite honestly, I would rather she hear things from me {and correctly}, then catch snippets from others that will skew her view. I don’t think they have a set age – just pre-teen. We held off a little bit, but I think it was perfect for our daughter – now just waiting for the right time with our next daughter!
Storing this away for the future!! I am with Grace though.. this totally made me cry!
we’ll have to chat more about it tomorrow. :)
What a great resource! And it also sounds like a great weekend. I still have some time before I would need to do something like this, but nice to know there’s something out there to help us out along the way.
cannot recommend it highly enough. :)