Week 2 of December: Fidelity and Chastity
In Connection with Richard and Linda Eyre

Editor’s Note:  This month the Meridian Family Value of the month is Fidelity and Chastity.  Click here to read last week’s overview article). Each week during the month we will post an update in Meridian, illustrating a couple of the Eyres’ favorite methods for teaching Fidelity and Chastity to each age group.  Remember that you can also go to www.valuesparenting.com for still more ideas and teaching methods.  Thanks for your interest and participation.  There are tens of thousands of parents concentrating on this value this month.  Strength in numbers!

Week Two:

Methods for Preschoolers

Teach Them about Body Parts and Functions, Using the Correct Terms

Point out physical differences in boys and girls in order to begin to give small children an appreciation of their bodies and to introduce and implant the openness with which you want children to think and feel about their bodies. Use bathtime to bring up the beauty of the body. Talk about the muscles and the bones, about how bodies grow and get stronger, about how sores and broken bones heal as good as new, about how boys’ bodies differ from girls’ and about how both male and female bodies are beautiful and miraculous.

Methods for Elementary School Age

Spruce Up Your Own Knowledge and Understanding of the Reproductive Process

Make sure you can answer questions accurately and give yourself much-needed confidence in initiating and teaching your children about their bodies.

Go to the library or the bookstore and do a little reviewing for the terms and processes that you would like to be able to explain simply and clearly to your children.

The Age-Eight Discussion

Use the discussion mentioned in the opening article on this value of the month to establish a foundation for clear and positive understanding of sex and a commitment to fidelity and chastity by your children. Follow the pattern outlines in the opening “story” presented in the overview article last week. Get one or more picture books your feel comfortable with. Cover at least the following points:

• Names of body parts
• The natural attraction of men and women
• Sexual intercourse as a method of expression of love and commitment
• The process by which sperm fertilizes an egg and an embryo develops
• The fact that sex is beautiful and wonderful — first, because it starts new babies and second, because it is a way a man and a woman say they love each other (like a big hug or kiss, only so much deeper and more special that it should be saved and done only by a husband and wife).

Be sure you explain to your child that he will hear some kids talking about sex as if it were dirty or silly, but that is just because they don’t understand it in the way your child does now. Their parents may not have told them yet what you have told your child.

Also be sure to encourage questions, to ask the child if he understands, to tell him he can ask everything he wants to, at any time!

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When our first son, Josh, turned eight, we took him out on his special “mommy-daddy date” to tell him about the “most wonderful thing on earth,” just as we had done with each of his two older sisters at the same age. We had to go early one evening because there was a Cub Scout and parents’ dinner later that evening.

The girls had responded very quietly to our talks with them. They understood. They were very interested and they viewed sex very positively and openly ever since.

Josh’s reaction was far more dramatic. Perhaps partly because of his acute interest in nature and science, he was enthralled by what we told him, “Wow,” he kept saying. “That is amazing.”

We were amused by his reaction and his questions, which might have been difficult or embarrassing expect that they were candid and spontaneous. “How do chickens do it, Dad?” “How do those little sperms swim that far when they are so little?” “Was that what those two cats were doing in the park?”

The most dangerous part of the evening was the Cub Scout dinner. We were so rushed to get there that our talk never got to the part about privacy and only talking about these things in our own home. To Josh the earlier discussion was far more interesting than the Cub Scout dinner, so we spent the whole evening trying to change the subject as Josh kept bringing up things that we hoped other people at the table didn’t understand: “How long before a baby cat is ready to come out?” “You’d think the chicken would fall off of the other one — how does he keep his balance?” and so on.

It was a long evening!

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Remember to read next week’s article for follow-up discussions, etc.

Methods for Adolescents

The Mortar Metaphor

This comparison can help adolescents understand the importance of fidelity in marriage. Look for a quiet, private time (perhaps while traveling in a car or during a peaceful moment at bedtime) and relate the following comparison:

It takes many elements to build a house — the bricks, the boards, the shingles, the windows, the doors and so on. One key element is the mortar, which holds everything in place. Similarly it takes many qualities to build a happy, unified family. It takes caring and helping and patience along with financial and emotional support. In a way the thing that “sticks” a family together and gives security and confidence to the parents of the children is the sexual fidelity of the mother and father. If either parent “cheats” on the other, it causes tremendous emotional strain. One parent feels guilty and secretive. The other feels disgraced and discarded. Even if the parents don’t separate or divorce, much of the feeling of commitment is gone, and the family, like a house without mortar, can begin to break apart.

The Horse-and-Bridle Metaphor

This can help adolescents view sex positively and at the same time recognize its force and the need for self-control. Find a quiet moment (like the first metaphor, this one is interesting and thought-provoking enough that your child will not feel preached to) and have a discussion with your adolescent along the following lines:

What is the purpose of a bridle for a horse? (To control the horse, to make it do what we wish it to do.)

Is there any other more complete way to control a horse? (Tie it up, hobble it, shoot it.)

What’s undesirable about these other ways? (They take the pleasure and purpose our of owning a horse in the first place.)

Why worry about controlling the horse? (It can run away with you or it can hurt you.)

Now, here’s a tough question. What is similar about the horse and about our sexual desires and drives? (Both are very strong; both can be much stronger than we are.)

Why do we need to control our sexual appetites? (They can run away with us and hurt us or hurt other people).

Are these desires evil or bad, then? (No, just as the horse isn’t bad, they are wonderful and beautiful.)

So how could we completely control them? (Take vows of celibacy; try to deny them or overcome them.)

Why not do that? (Because sexual desire is good and right and natural, even though ti can be dangerous.)

So what to do? (“Bridle” this passion.)

How? (By deciding in advance that we will put limits on ourselves, that we’ll be true and faithful in marriage and save the deepest forms of physical affection for the commitment of marriage.