The Whole Story

I found it easier to tell my girls the basics about the facts of life than I did to add the personal element to it as they grew into teens.

I told them about their periods, but talking about porn? Masturbation? Peer pressure? I wasn’t as good at that.

And I was also really frustrated with the way that the resources that I did have available were slanting the whole conversation.

The guide I used when Rebecca hit puberty was all about purity–teaching her why sex was only for marriage. But at that age (she was 10), the thought of actually doing that wasn’t even on her radar.

She didn’t need to be convinced to wait until marriage. She needed to be convinced that it was a good thing at all!

And so we didn’t really delve too much into purity, because I thought the lessons would backfire. And then, when she was 14 and 15 and actually ready for those lessons, we had moved on.

That’s why we’ve arranged this course so that, for the younger girls, it’s more information based. We tell them what is happening and why, but we leave the emotional part until the older version. That’s when we delve into those hard topics that affect teenagers.

I found that so many girls today hit puberty when they’re still really young and before sexual feelings really start. Yet often that’s the last time moms talk to their daughters–when they hit puberty.

And then, when they really need us, we’ve forgotten how to have those conversations.

With The Whole Story, you can keep having those conversations!

But we don’t aim to replace you. This is just a resource to START those conversations.

Rebecca, when writing her book Why I Didn’t Rebel, found again and again that it was parents’ expectations of their children that made the biggest difference. When parents were authentic with their kids about their faith, and expected their kids to be authentic, too, then kids tended to follow Jesus easily. But when parents expected the worst, or didn’t tell the kids what they expected at all, kids tended to flounder.

Our philosophy in this course is that we’ll tell your kids the information and in general terms what God wants, but then we have discussion guidelines, checklists, and activity ideas so that you can have the real heart-to-heart with your daughter, in a stress-free way, about what guidelines you want her to have.

It’s what YOU think about makeup that matters. It’s the guidelines YOU have about dating and sex that matter.

I’m not raising your daughters, and my girls certainly aren’t raising them, either!

It’s YOUR values that matter.

So let us start those conversations at just the right ages, and then YOU can guide those conversations home.