Secret Keeper Girl

Posted by SKG Lead Teacher, Jacqueline Gardner

Waiting a while to have “the talk”? Don’t wait too long. Since values are formed in the tween years, that big sex talk is one you should have now, before she turns ten. What happens if you wait? Well, if you don’t tell her, the world will. And it’s much easier to build a sexual value system from the ground up than to dismantle untruths and rebuild. So take a breath. Here’s how!

• Use the Words. You might be stretched right out of your comfort zone with words like vagina, penis, and intercourse. But those are all words you need to actually use with your daughter before she’s ten. (You made her, you know how this works!). Be accurate and explicit. You might say something like: When a husband and wife want to show each other how very much they love each other, they use a gift God gave to them that’s called sex. They are all alone, and they are naked. God tells us that there is no need to cover their bodies when they are married and that they can enjoy hugging and touching each other. During this time, they hold each other very closely, and the husband can fit his penis into the wife’s vagina. This act is God’s special way to get the sperm from the man into the woman so the eggs in her body can be fertilized. This is called intercourse. That’s how babies are made.

• Answer questions truthfully. Your conversation may lead to a lot of questions. Some kids laugh. Others think it’s gross. Still others are fascinated enough to ask a lot of questions, and guess what? You get to answer them! How you respond is as important as introducing the basics. Good news is that if she’s ready to hear, she’ll usually ask.

• Be positive! Sex is a great gift from God that is not only pleasurable but holy! Filling our kids with a negative “don’t have sex” message is a horrible strategy. If we do, they won’t come to us to ask for the answers to questions or desires. They’ll turn to sources who have not treated sex as taboo. We’re not telling our daughter, “don’t have sex.” We’re telling her, “wait to have it right.”

• Give her a symbol of purity. When Dannah’s daughter was just five years old, her husband came home with a special gift—a blue gemstone bracelet for Lexi to wear on her wedding day. The engraved box read, “Something blue.” For her tenth, they added an antique necklace. “Something old.” At sixteen, a hand-designed handkerchief from Grammy. “Something new.” You get the plan. Why? Because they are dreaming with her! It’s easy to be negative about boys (especially when your daughter suddenly finds them attractive!), but a positive message will be far more memorable. Dream with her about the pure relationship God wants her to have one day, and teach her that the beauty of that relationship depends on how she lives now.

Taken from “Six Ways to Keep the Little in Your Girl”

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED!

Congratulations to Tamara, Shawna, Sarah, Kim, Erin Simmons and Gail Nichols
(check your e-mail for information on how to claim your prize!)

It’s almost Mother’s Day, and we want to give you something special! This WIN on Wednesday, tell us:

What do you find to be the most challenging/rewarding thing about being a mom?

Post your response in the comments. We will randomly draw 6 winners at 5pm EST to WIN a copy of Beyond Bath Time, a unique book that will guide you as you embrace motherhood for the sacred role that it is.

Do you want to hear more about the Pure Freedom vision? We want you to meet us and listen to our hearts firsthand. You are officially invited to our June 5th Living Letters event. It’s in State College, PA and many of you cannot attend, but we want you to know you are welcome. During this up-close-and-personal evening, Bob and Dannah share their vision, and hope to make some exciting announcements. We also celebrate the lives into which God has written “living letters” of recommendation for our work, as the Apostle Paul called them in II Corinthians! It all takes place on Tuesday evening, June 5th, from 6 - 9pm and our featured guest is Dannah’s dear friend and national abstinence spokesperson Pam Stenzel.

One thing is clear to us: God is calling us to be faithful to get the ministries of Pure Freedom and Secret Keeper Girl poised to go to the next level. The next step is getting ready. We must be poised for movement. To do that, we need to eliminate a remaining balance of $9,000 on our line-of-credit and complete our new Pure Freedom event set which costs about $9,000. We are praying for $18,000 to come in before June 5th. (We shared this need with some of you in February, and are especially grateful to contributors at that time who extended $5,085 in one-time donations to cover our payroll crunch as we waited for the season’s tour income to start up. However, we did not meet the goal of covering these other two expenses.) Filling this need will poise us to move into our new vision.

Would you consider joining us in prayer and taking action in one of these three ways? Read more

Jacqueline Gardner, SKG Lead Teacher

Does your tween ever get a bad case of the greedy-grimy gimmes? We know how that goes. With advertisers going to great lengths to hook them early, it seems tweens are always begging for more STUFF. And since tweens are spending over $170 billion worldwide each year (mostly through pester power), it also seems things are a bit out of control!

Want to teach your tween the value of money? Give them a budget, not an allowance. Help them see the value of money by connecting their income (budget) to their work (chores). Then show them how to divide their budget into three envelopes—some to save, some to spend, and some to give. As they get older, their budget can even cover personal needs and clothing each month. It’ll immediately prevent impulse buying and “pleeeeeeeease mom” purchases by putting them in charge of small financial decisions. Let them make their own choices, practice responsibility, and learn self-control. And just like in the world of adults, when the budget’s gone, it’s gone!

How do you teach your kids about money management?