Rules are important. Boundaries are necessary. And we need to set them for our kids. But it is important to remember that “rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” Place all the rules and boundaries within the context of your loving relationship with your kids. You might want to reread chapters 3, 4, and 5 of this book as you begin to set your child’s boundaries.
As we said, whenever God tells us “no” or sets up boundaries for us, he does so out of two loving motivations—to provide for us and to protect us. As you set sexual rules and boundaries for your kids, let them know you have the same loving motivation as well.
I (Josh) have found the “umbrella illustration” a good way to explain the provide-and-protect nature of the rules.
I explain that the rules are like an umbrella. If it is raining outside you put up an umbrella. As long as you stay under that umbrella, you are under its protection and you are under its provision. You are protected from the rain and you are provided with dryness. But when by an act of your will you move out from underneath that umbrella, you have removed yourself from its protection and provision and you suffer the consequences. You get wet. There are consequences to your choices.
It is important that our kids sense that any boundaries we set up are because we love them and want them to be provided for and protected. With that as a foundation, then what are some excellent boundaries that need to be established? We offer five.
One big question we parents must face is when to let our kids start dating. Many adolescents begin quite young, as early as age 11 or 12. But just because “everybody else is dating” (which they are not at 11 or 12) is no reason to let your kids start dating then.
The time to allow your young person to date is when you as a parent are confident that your child is mature enough to date responsibly. This means your young person is ready to set some moral standards along the lines we mentioned in chapter 3, namely a commitment to purity, faithfulness, and the choice to express Godlike love. A young person needs to be able to clearly articulate these standards and stick to them. If your teen is not ready for committing to standards, he or she is not ready to say no to the pressures toward premarital sex. And such a child should certainly not be out dating.
Another issue to consider is the age difference between your young person and the one he or she wants to date. The Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy rightly and emphatically urges that parents “take a strong stand against your daughter dating a boy significantly older than she is. And don’t allow your son to develop an intense relationship with a girl much younger than he is.”1 They go on to say,
Older guys can seem glamorous to a young girl. But the risk of matters getting out of hand increases when the guy is much older than the girl. Try setting a limit of no more than a two (or at most three) year age difference. The power differences between older boys or men and younger girls can lead girls into risky situations, including unwanted sex.2
Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family, explains that “parents who set moderate, reasonable rules for teens experienced the lowest prevalence of sexual activity with their teens. These parents set moderate rules, carefully supervised their teenagers in regard to whom they dated and where they went, and insisted on a reasonable curfew.”3
Research shows that “…teens who watch sexual content on television are more likely to engage in sex; teens who watch a lot of television tend to have negative attitudes about being a virgin; and teens that see sexual content as being reality are more impacted by the sexual content.” In light of that statement, consider that “average students, for example, watch 5,000 hours of television before they ever get to school.”4 However, children now select the Internet over TV as their choice of entertainment.5
Boundaries need to be set as to the amount of time, when, and where our young people watch and engage in entertainment media.
We constantly taught our children that when people take alcohol or drugs, they lose their freedom to not only make right moral choices, but to act responsibly. For example, look at the effects of drugs and alcohol on sexual intercourse or oral sex. A number of years ago the “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Report” showed the following:6
• Among currently sexually active students, 25.6 percent (30.9 percent of males and 20.7 percent of females) reported using drugs or alcohol during last intercourse.
• Among currently sexually active students, 25.4 percent of twelfth graders, 24.7 percent of eleventh graders, 27.7 percent of tenth graders, and 24 percent of ninth graders reported using drugs or alcohol during last intercourse.
• Among currently sexually active students, 17.8 percent of black students, 24.1 percent of Hispanic students, and 27.8 percent of white students reported using alcohol or drugs during last intercourse.
Studies show that teens usually have sex at home after school and before parents come home from work. Set a boundary that no friends of the opposite sex are to be in the house when no “adult” is present. They might scream, “You’ve got to be kidding! Mom and Dad, don’t you trust me?” This is precisely when you want your child to know you really love them and want to provide for and protect them.
Education.com reports the following:7
• 75.1 percent of males and 59.4 percent of females left unsupervised for five or fewer hours per week reported having had sexual intercourse compared to 87.6 percent of males and 72.5 percent of females left unsupervised for 30 or more hours per week.
• 5.7 percent of males and 15.3 percent of females left unsupervised for five or fewer hours per week reported having had an STD compared to 13.6 percent of males and 19.5 percent of females left unsupervised for 30 or more hours per week.
• 43 percent of males and 27.9 percent of females reported last having had sexual intercourse in their own homes.
Some very practical words again from Harvest USA:
Overnight sleep-overs can be the Trojan horse for porn exposure or other sexual experimentation. Assume other families (even church families) do not take the techno dangers as seriously as you do. Make sure your teens have a clear plan of action (including calling home for a ride) if they find themselves in any compromising situations.
More than 50 percent of web access is no longer through the “computer” but through handheld devices (smartphones, iPads, Kindles, and so on). Many parents require that the computer be in an open area of the house (and not the bedroom) and also require all Internet-accessing devices be placed in the parents’ room at bedtime.
Harvest USA is a Christian ministry that aids churches and families in the area of helping kids say no to sexual pressure. They make the point that parents should
let your teens know you lovingly check-up on them and the techno-dangers to their walk with God. Give them “permission” to use your check-ups as a peer-pressure defeater. Then they can say, “I can’t do that because I know my parents will find out.” This can provide hedges of protection Christian teens actually crave.8
In the Old West certain establishments enforced a “check your gun at the door” policy. The idea was to keep the place safer. One young mother had a helpful idea to protect her family in a similar way when her kids’ friends visited. She instituted a “check your smartphone at the door” policy. She was aware that kids could save porn images on their phones and view them without the need of the Internet by use of an SD card. So to prevent porn viewing in her home she simply collected every smartphone up front then returned it as kids left the premises…just like establishments in the Old West did with guns.
In regard to Internet use on computers, Harvest USA urges,
Buy a quality Internet filter! It is unwise to have Internet access without some form of blocking and filtering device. Consider putting every family member using the Internet—Dad, Mom, each child—on an “accountability program” like Covenant Eyes that sends e-mail reports of inappropriate uses to accountability partners. You need to model accountability regarding your own use and may also want to set yourself up as one of your teen’s accountability report recipients.9
Note also that filtering programs are available for mobile devices as well.
We listed a number of “accountability” software programs in chapter 19, but we will repeat it here:
X3 Watch—pay/free |
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Total Net Guard—pay |
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Bsecure—pay |
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Net Nanny—pay |
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Covenant Eyes—pay |
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Safe Eyes—free |
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Cyber Sitter—pay |
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Pure Sight—pay |
Also:
Regularly check internet history, cell-phone and instant-messaging records, hits on YouTube; also examine MySpace [and Facebook] pages and who’s on the friends list, and know the friends with whom your teen is playing MMORPG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). Beware of allowing use of MySpace-type sites, where teens often experiment in building a double life, condition themselves to Internet false intimacy, or find their sense of belonging in a virtual community to the exclusion of the real world.10
There are many other “boundaries” you need to establish in your family. One very critical boundary is related to sexual abuse, whether physical or verbal. In an article posted by Health and Fitness entitled “Teaching Children About Healthy Sexuality” it correctly explains that
parents have an important task of teaching kids to respect the individualized space and the sexual body parts of others. A no touching rule can be taught. “Please do not touch others on their sexual body parts.” “Keep your hands to yourself.” “If someone touches your sexual body parts, please tell me.”11
These are the kinds of boundaries we need to establish with and for our kids. Give your children permission to emphatically say “no” to anyone (even family members) who wants to touch “private parts.” Constantly reinforce with them that it is not only okay to say “no,” but it is important that they come to you if any touching like that occurs.
The boundaries you set up with and for your children are like the umbrella we spoke about. Every one of them is positive and becomes an act of your love to protect your child and to provide for him or her. Above all else let your kids know you are doing what you are doing because you love them. They may not like the boundaries or even fully understand your reasoning, but they can know you are doing it because you love them.