I get asked this question in its various forms, especially in Christian circles, all the time.
Is maturbation, same-sex marriage, sex before marriage, pornography, etc. okay? All these difficult sex conversations can be difficult to answer as a family. Please let me preface this conversation by saying that I am not going to give you an answer at the end of this post. My hope however is to give you a little bit of a road map on how to come to a more comfortable and confident stance by giving you some questions to ask yourself (and your partner). See, when it comes to uncomfortable conversations, often times our first response is to look for a quick yes or no answer – is it okay or not? But in reality, this does little for us in the long term because it doesn’t answer the “why?” part of these conversations, which in my experience, is essential to finding lasting wholeness and creating positive habits.If you take the time to answer “why?” for yourself and your family, regardless of someone else’s opinion, you can stand firmly on yours.
So, how do we get there? First, know that it will hopefully be through a series of conversations, rather than happen overnight. On a couple of these issues, my husband I have spent months talking through their many layers. In some instances, we sought out the counsel of trusted others whose wisdom and guidance helped us find confidence in our positions. The process can be slow, which requires patience and diligence, but the payoff is absolutely worth it. You will find yourself confidently owning your convictions, knowing you put in the work to get there, which makes having conversations with your kids around these topics way less anxiety producing!
Here are some helpful questions to consider as you discuss these (and other) nuanced issues related to sex:
What is your belief in the purpose of sex?
What is your personal experience with _________? Is there any healing that needs to happen around that area?
If you are coming from a faith background, what evidence do you see regarding God’s posture towards it?
Does this action (or acceptance of an action) help you love yourself and others more freely, and does it allow you to love God more deeply and with more of yourself? (Question from Tara Owens of http://www.anamcara.com/)
If it is an action, is this part of our life known? Do we have a support system outside of our family to seek guidance if issues do arise?
I want to acknowledge that these issues are nuanced and complicated in nature, making firm answers hard to find. My hope for you is that this would not bread anxiety but that you would have peace knowing you have done hard work on your journey of seeking truth.
When I’m considering a concept like healthy sexuality, I like to think of the end product.
So if you produce children who have a healthy concept of sexuality, what will they be like in their teens, in their 20’s, and in their adult years? I’d like my children to have confidence in who they are, I’d like them to be safe and be able to protect themselves sexually. I’d like them to be able to manage their sexual urges and make wise decisions with their sexuality. I’d like them to have rewarding sexual experiences in life, being able to participate in a reciprocal sexual relationship within a loving and committed partnership, knowing what feels good and what doesn’t, and to have the confidence to get their sexual needs met.
Where would you like your children to end up?
To achieve these goals I think our children need to have a strong self-esteem, effective communication skills,comfort with their own bodies. I’d venture to say that a healthy sexuality entails understanding your values, being able to regulate yourself, being comfortable with vulnerability and intimacy. I think we’d all agree, that healthy sexuality goes way beyond the sexual act itself. Sex is more than just sex, it’s more than an orgasm. It’s couched in a relationship with self and with other.
I spoke with a mum recently who was worried that her children would grow into promiscuous teens. We talked about her fears, and ways she could work on their resiliency. Do they have good relationships with men and women? Are they starved for affection, do they struggle with their self-esteem, are they looking for attention and do they struggle to regulate themselves? I believe that if your child has experienced joy and excitement in life in healthy settings, then they are more likely to be able to regulate this emotion in the teenage years. They are less likely to seek this out in unhealthy ways.
I love this American concept of the daddy-daughter dance. To give young girls the experience of having fun and feeling treasured within a healthy relationship, goes far in building their self-worth. It gives them a template of feeling loved and of being treated with respect. Of course not all girls have fathers, but I’ve seen young girls and women go to these events with an older brother, with a grandfather, with a friend of the family.
The concept of regulation is so important, to teach children how to say no, to manage their desires, to manage down time and quiet time. My children are addicted to their Ipads, and so this becomes a natural environment in which to teach them regulation skills. We expect our children to develop an internal monitor to tell them when it’s time to take a break. As they were 3 – 5 years old, we’d do the monitoring for them. But now that they are 5, 7 and 9 years old, they can put on a timer and stop themselves when they’ve hit their time limit. We talk with them a lot about regulating themselves, and reward them when they remember to do it for themselves.
Being comfortable spending time alone is something else that I want to work with them on. I recently decided I would give them an hour on weekends to play by themselves. I think that it’s important to know how to be with others, but also how to be comfortable within yourself and to enjoy spending time alone, to develop comfort with silence.
Some of the greatest joy I feel as a parent, is when I see my children being free and spontaneous. Seeing my 7 year old today, dancing and singing at the top of her lungs without any shame, brought a smile to my face. I found myself thinking, if she can feel this good and this free on a regular Saturday afternoon, then perhaps she won’t believe that she needs drugs or to be promiscuous one day, in order to feel good and to lose herself in a false sense of freedom.
Masters and Johnson (from the book Sex and Human Loving) have a saying that I appreciate, that as parents we don’t really have a choice about whether our children get sex information, instead we can only choose whether or not to participate in the sex education and definition of sexuality that is already taking place.
So it is with this outlook, that sex education is going to happen whether we like it or not, and whether we are involved or not, that we suggest that sexuality is not a single act, but instead it is a journey and a lifestyle. As parents, we are often most focused on one single point on the map, explaining to our children what sex is, and what menstruation is. This single point is a ticking time bomb, and many of us feel ill prepared for this conversation and end up dreading it. But what if we took the pressure off this one point of time, and take a whole childhood to seed that conversation.
Being able to take this journey I believe consists of three parts:
Step 1 is our definition of healthy sexuality. With a broad definition, we will see the opportunities throughout the developmental stages, to discuss sexuality.
Step 2 is considering our own sexuality and understanding what we bring to this conversation. Whether that is our own anxiety or our comfort in approaching sexuality.
Step 3 is understanding who our child is, so that we can adequately meet them on this journey. Our knowledge and attunement to our child, will help us know when and how to address this topic.
During this blog series, we will discuss each of these three Steps to helping our children develop a healthy sexuality. We did an informal survey of parents, asking for questions about this topic, and so we will also be covering a number of these, including: sexual exploration versus molestation, discuss sexuality at the developmental stages, etc…
Mariah and I hope that with this blog series, we might be able to show you what this journey could entail, and perhaps steer you in the right direction or at least show you the next step.
We’re excited to walk alongside you in this series,
Kathryn and Mariah
ABOUT KATHRYN DE BRUIN
Kathryn de Bruin is a Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in San Diego. She teaches play therapy at the UCSD Play Therapy Extension program, and trains therapists around the world in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. With a specialty in working with families, Kathryn has spoken on this topic of Developing Healthy Sexuality in Children in a variety of settings.
ABOUT MARIAH MCQUEEN
Mariah McQueen is a Marriage and Family Therapist Associate and has been working with Kathryn for three years. She works with couples and families using Emotionally Focused Therapy. She became passionate about the topic of healthy sexuality after going through her own healing journey individually and in her marriage. She has spoken and facilitates groups on the topic.
Couples benefit so much from our Intensive Couples Therapy Retreats as it means getting an expert couples therapist to themselves for an extended period of time.
Give your relationship the gift of being assessed, and get a treatment plan that is tailored just for the two of you.
Couples therapy takes time, and getting to a couples therapist once a week for an hour, can take a lot of effort. Dealing with scheduling, getting through the traffic, running into session out of breath, can also contribute to the stress that created the couple’s problems to begin with.
If this is the case for you, consider going to an Intensive Couples Retreat in San Diego. Because here, you get to create a schedule for your retreat. So you get to come in on a weekend, or a day of the week that you pick, and put aside 4 – 6 hours per day to work on your relationship.
You will be hosted in a beautiful office space, where you have a room to yourselves during your breaks, make yourselves at comfortable on the couch in our kitchen area, bring food to put in the fridge, heat up your lunch, or enjoy the balcony and get some sunshine and fresh air.
You might wonder if you are the right couple for this experience?
We always do an assessment over the phone first, taking some time to talk with both of you, to understand what your goals are, to get an idea of your dynamic, before setting up the intensive.
Call me now to get started with setting up the intensive:
Step 1: Call me to set up the intake Assessment phone call
This starts on the phone with a 15 min conversation with each of you, we discuss your goals, your history, any injuries that have come from the relational history.
Step 2: Let’s book a time for your Intensive Couples Retreat
We will find dates that work for the three of us, and I will put that time aside. I will only charge you for the time that we spend doing therapy, and we will work on giving you needed breaks between appointments. Some couples go on a lunch break, others bring in lunch and enjoy the balcony, others go back to their hotel for a nap.
Step 3: Taking part in the Intensive
First 2 hrs in Session:
We will start together as a couple, and I will want to get to know your relationship. Where do you connect, how do each of you define closeness, when have things gone well or gone poorly.
I will then meet with each of you individually, to assess some more specific parts of your relationship: how do you each think and feel when you are feeling attacked in the relationship. What do you like about the relationship and what is not working for you. What would you change about your spouse if you could? At the end of this assessment time, you will get feedback, and we will lay out your treatment plan. Together we will decide how much of this treatment we want to get through during your time in San Diego.
Follow up:
This can happen with a therapist of your choice back in your home city. I will sign a Release of Information and share what we have done with your home therapist. Sometimes I support you as a couple with a follow up Intensive, or a follow up Online Call (using Skype or Zoom).
Let me know if you are interested in doing an Intensive with me, and we will create the schedule together!
There are tons of helpful “Stages of Play” graphics online. Hopefully these are helpful for parents to navigate and translate your child’s play in the various stages!
These stages are integral for a child’s development in all areas, especially social skills. However, every child develops at their own pace. I invite you to contact me if you have questions about your child’s behaviors at any stage- I’m happy to help!
Unoccupied Play (Birth-3 mos): A baby in this stage makes alot of body movements, discovering how to move their body and arms and legs.
Solitary Play (Birth-2 yrs):A child seems totally content playing by themselves without the involvement of others.
Spectator/ Onlooker Play (2 yrs): A child begins to watch others play, but still is content playing alone.
Parallel Play (2+ yrs): A child starts to play next to, or alongside others, but does not necessarily join in.
Associative Play (3-4 yrs): A child starts to interract with others while playing, however, they may all still be doing different things. This article gives an example of all the kids playing together on a jungle gym- but they may be doing different activities within that jungle gym.
Social / Cooperative Play (4+): When a child starts to not only pay attention and alongside other children in an activity, they are actively aware and playing with the other children involved.
If you’re wondering how play therapists choose their toys, it’s according to these Play Therapy Themes.
It doesn’t matter how many toys you have, but that you have toy in each category. This gives your child a wide toy choice so that they can express what they need to. If you watch carefully, you might also start to notice different play themes coming out in your child’s play. Look for one of these:
Power and Aggression Themes
–Good Guy vs. Bad Guy
–Aggressor-Victim (Child as Aggressor or Victim)
–Generalized Aggression
–Dying/Death
–Devouring
–Power Overcoming Weakness
–Seeking Power/Authority/Wisdom
Family Relationship and Nurturance Themes
–Constancy
–Togetherness/Separation
–Nurturing Others
–Self-Nurturance
–Failed Nurturance
–Self-Neglect or Punishment
–Lack of Attachment/Detachment
–Parent/Caregiver-Child
–Regression
–Exits and Entrances to Family System
Control and Safety Themes
–Danger
–Rescue
–Escape
–Fire/Disasters
–Burying or Drowning
–Broken/Sick/Hurt
–Fixing/Repairing/Doctoring
–Cleaning
–Messing
–Sorting
–Containing
–Protecting
–Controlling
–Refusal/Inaction
–Manipulation
Exploration and Mastery Themes
–Sensory/Environment Exploration
–Mastery/Competence
–Cheating/Winning
–Creativity
Interaction Themes
–Building Relationship With Adult
–General Positive Interactions
–General Negative Interactions
–Boredom
–Acceptance/Rejection
Sexualized Play
–Sexual Activities
–Sexual Behaviors Directed at Adult
–Sexual Curiosity
There is so much when it comes to playing. It’s the beginning of a whole new world. Enjoy it, watch carefully and learn about your kiddo!
