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.
