Note: Robyn helped with editing the new edition of 10 Tips on How NOT to Talk to Your Kids About Sex, and is also a Board member of Audrey Werner’s ministry, The Matthew XVIII Group.
The revised and expanded edition of 10 Tips on How NOT to Talk to Your Kids About Sex is a must-read for every Christian parent today.
Author Audrey Werner began her nursing career in the 1990s as a school nurse, where she was trained to teach school children sex ed. She learned how important it is to teach children about their bodies, health, and the importance of dealing with sexuality the right way, in order to protect them from the temptations and evil actors that threaten them in today’s society.
However, in God’s providence, she later began working in an STD clinic, where she was shown the direct results of her efforts to teach children sex ed: increased immorality, increased abuse by bad actors, and even increased evil actions on the part of the children!
Thus begins the story of Audrey Werner, a woman who only wanted to be a good Christian mom, and ended up on a thirty-year crusade to help Christians understand that our modern approach to talking to our kids about sex is unbiblical, unchristian, and harmful.
Historical Background and Practical Tips
10 Tips is divided into two parts. It begins with the history of how sex ed was introduced into American life. If you think that the sex ed problems in the schools today are bad, you will be amazed to see that this is not a new turn off of a respectable road of “health education”, but the intended destination, all along. The book would be worth buying for the history section, all by itself.
The second part of the book, and the heart of it, is the 10 Tips. Firmly based on biblical principles, Christian parents will find these Tips a breath of fresh air! Most modern Christian materials train parents that we must do something Christians have never done before in our entire history, until the past few decades—teach our children all about their private parts, with pictures and diagrams, and even teach them about sexual acts. 10 Tips teaches parents how it is that Christians (even the ones living in cultures saturated with immorality) used to teach their children about God’s Life Process for close to 2,000 years, using the Bible as the model, along with practical helps and lots of good example conversations. (And scriptures used in context!)
One of the most shocking things the reader will learn is that most of the Christian materials in church libraries, Christian bookstores, and even in our very church programs are written based on the “scientific, unbiased research” of pedophiles, homosexuals, and other deviants! Christian books on “biblical purity” will add a few Bible verses about abstaining from fleshly lusts, but the main content focuses the mind on sexual experiences. The main thrust is to tell children, “Here’s what intimacy is, and wow it’s really great, and you are really, really, really going to want to do it right away! But don’t do it!!!” There is nothing biblical about teaching something like this to children; rather, the Bible warns, “Do not arouse or awaken love before its time.” God made children sexually innocent, and that knowledge should be awakened at the right time, in all purity.
But the beauty of Audrey’s book is that she doesn’t just leave it at, “Don’t tell your children X, Y, and Z,” but rather she teaches how we should teach our children, so that they will be protected from the darkness of our apostate Christian culture. Her Tips are easy to put into practice, natural, and absolutely refreshing for Christian parents.
Personal Note
My husband, Roel, and I first heard Audrey’s information long before she was speaking around the world, appearing in documentaries, and writing books; she told the gatherings who came to hear her speak that she was “just a mom”, and it was true. But her personal experience and the depth of her research—and above all, the self-evident rightness of the scriptures which she brought to bear on this topic—were absolutely compelling. We were converted from being strong advocates for the importance of teaching our children about sexuality from the start (“We need to tell them the right answers before someone else in this culture tells them the wrong ones!”) to rearranging our home and lifestyle so that we would protect our children’s innocence. Thirteen years later, we still bless the day that God used Audrey Werner to bring us out of the sex ed philosophy we were taught as young people and bring us into a true understanding of biblical purity (which is not what our churches taught us in “purity” conferences!).
This book is the culmination of thirty years of research and ministry on this subject for Audrey, and I cannot recommend it more highly to every Christian parent.
It’s available for sale on Amazon, or through the Grammar of Grace shop.
