I have a book sitting on my shelf right now. Its title is a simple but poignant question -- What Do You Really Want for Your Children? This is the question at the heart of Principle #1: Define Your Values.
Most parents want absolutely everything for their kids. They want to raise them to be great in every area of life -- funny, determined, respectful, creative, compassionate, smart, friendly, brave, confident, yet also humble and willing to learn. Parents want their kids to have loyal friends, top-notch schooling, perfect health, a few well-selected hobbies, and a bright future. There's no good thing we don't want for our kids.
But the way that book's title is phrased narrows things down a bit when it asks, "What do you really want for your children?" That "really" causes me to evaluate what, out of all those things, is most important, most necessary for my child's well-being.
The most important things will be different for every family and possibly for every individual kid. When I've reflected on what I really want for my child, I've come up with three things that strike me as most important -- happiness, honesty, and kindness. I know families who put a high premium on other values, such as independence, reverence, knowledge, respect, obedience, empowerment, fun, hard work, or safety. These values are all great -- you can take each of them to an unhealthy extreme, certainly, but placed in a proper perspective, each one can be beneficial.
The task of Principle #1 is to put some effort into deciding which values are most important for your family.
I want to make a special note here that even though this blog is all about sex education, and even though this principle -- Define Your Values -- is completely relevant to how you'll address sex education with your kids, I'm not just talking about defining values that are specific to sex and sexuality. The values that matter most for you as a parent have a much wider application. These are the values that you want to instill in your kids to help them in their educations, in their friendships, in their major life choices, in their hobbies. These are whole-life values.
So as you're doing the work of defining your values, don't feel like you need to focus too much on the sex education side of things. Just consider what values matter most to you overall, and I promise that they'll tie in beautifully when it comes to sex education.
Here are some questions that will help you define your values:
How do I want my kids to approach life?
What qualities do I want my family to exhibit? What words would I want their friends or our neighbors to use to describe us as a family?
When my children are adults, how would I like them to describe themselves, our family, or their childhood?
When I pray for my kids, what sorts of blessings do I want for them?
When my kids have received blessings in the past (baby blessings, blessings when they're sick, blessings at the beginning of a school year, etc.), what qualities has the person performing the blessing specifically mentioned as ones they possess or are in special need of?
And if you're interested in thinking about your family's approach to sex education as you define your values, these questions might help:
How do I want my kids to feel about sex when they're adults? (Psst: One really good clue to that answer might come from thinking about how you want to feel about sex now that you are an adult.)
If someone were to ask your adult child about their sex education at home, what words would you want them to use?
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As you ask these questions and reflect on the way your family operates, I think you'll notice which values you really want for your children -- not just the ones that would be nice, but the ones you care deeply about and prioritize above all the others. For our purposes, I think it's helpful to narrow your list down to 2-5 values, simply so they're easy to remember off the top of your head. As I mentioned before, the values I care most about are happiness, honesty, and kindness. You might come up with lists like these:
- trust, safety, love, righteousness
- joy, independence, respect
- obedience, knowledge
- empowerment, fun, patience
And so on and so forth. Whatever combination makes sense for you, defining your values will give you a great starting point for taking care of sex education with your kids. Knowing which values matter most for you will clarify your goals, and when faced with a difficult or confusing situation, you can return to those values to figure out your next move.
I'd Love To Know: What values take precedence for your family? How did you come to identify those specific values? Were they obvious, or did you have to examine the question carefully? How do you think these values will guide you as you teach your kids about sex and sexuality? How have these values already affected your parenting choices? I'd love to know. Join the conversation in the comments below.
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