Parent Guides to Mental & Sexual Health: 5 Conversation Starters: The Sex Talk / Pornography / Sexual Assault / Suicide & Self-Harm Prevention / Depression & Anxiety

By Axis

The Parent’s Guides to Mental & Sexual Health unravel parents’ fears about breaching sensitive topics like sex, pornography, sexual assault, suicide, self-harm, depression, and anxiety. They give parents an awareness of the cultural messages teens are receiving on these topics and provide parents an avenue to reach their teens where they are at.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781496474377

Book preview

Parent Guides to Mental & Sexual Health

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Parent Guides to Mental & Sexual Health

A Parent’s Guide to the Sex Talk copyright © 2023 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to Pornography copyright © 2023 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to Sexual Assault copyright © 2023 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to Suicide & Self-Harm Prevention copyright © 2023 by Axis. All rights reserved.

A Parent’s Guide to Depression & Anxiety copyright © 2023 by Axis. All rights reserved.

Cover illustration by Lindsey Bergsma. Copyright © Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.

Designed by Lindsey Bergsma

Scripture quotations in A Parent’s Guide to the Sex Talk, A Parent’s Guide to Pornography, A Parent’s Guide to Sexual Assault, and A Parent’s Guide to Depression & Anxiety are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations in A Parent’s Guide to Suicide & Self-Harm Prevention are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at [e-mail], or call 1-855-277-9400.

Parent Guides to Mental & Sexual Health first published in 2023 under ISBNs 978-1-4964-7436-0 (Kindle); 978-1-4964-7438-4 (Apple); 978-1-4964-7437-7 (ePub)

Build: 2023-05-01 11:42:42 EPUB 3.0

AXIS PARENT GUIDES SERIES

A Parent’s Guide to Teen FOMO

A Parent’s Guide to Influencers

A Parent’s Guide to Instagram

A Parent’s Guide to TikTok

A Parent’s Guide to YouTube

A Parent’s Guide to Teen Identity

A Parent’s Guide to LGBTQ+ & Your Teen

A Parent’s Guide to Body Positivity

A Parent’s Guide to Eating Disorders

A Parent’s Guide to Fear & Worry

A Parent’s Guide to the Sex Talk

A Parent’s Guide to Pornography

A Parent’s Guide to Sexual Assault

A Parent’s Guide to Suicide & Self-Harm Prevention

A Parent’s Guide to Depression & Anxiety

PARENT GUIDE BUNDLES

Parent Guides to Social Media

Parent Guides to Finding True Identity

Parent Guides to Mental & Sexual Health

Contents

A Parent’s Guide to the Sex Talk

A Letter from Axis

Forget Having Just One Talk—We Need to Talk to Our Kids about Sex Early and Often

What Has the Sex Talk Looked Like over the Years?

Why Does the Sex Talk Need to Change?

What Stops Parents from Talking to Their Kids about Sex?

What Principles Should I Follow When I’m Talking to My Kids about Sex?

Discussion Questions

Final Thoughts

Recap

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to Pornography

A Letter from Axis

If We Don’t Disciple Our Kids about Sexuality, Porn Will Do It for Us

What’s Porn Like These Days?

What Do Teens and Young Adults Think about Porn?

Where Do People Find Porn?

When Do People Encounter Porn?

How Does Porn Affect Users?

What’s the Relationship between Porn and Sex Trafficking?

How Do People Rationalize Using Porn?

Can’t I Just Block All Porn Using Strong Filters?

How Do Kids Hide Porn?

How Can I Tell If My Kids Are Looking at Porn?

What Can I Do to Protect My Kids from Porn?

Final Thoughts

Recap

Discussion Questions

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to Sexual Assault

A Letter from Axis

Real Talk about Sexual Assault

What Is Sexual Assault?

How Do I Talk about It with My Kids?

How Do I Prevent It?

How Do I Equip My Children to Avoid Assault?

What Do I Do If My Child Has Been Sexually Assaulted?

What Do I Do If My Child IsAccused of (orConfesses to) Committing Sexual Assault?

What Does God’s Word Say about Sexual Assault?

How Do I Teach My Children to Respect the Sexual Dignity of Others?

Discussion Questions

Recap

Final Thoughts

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to Suicide & Self-Harm Prevention

A Letter from Axis

You’re Not Alone

An Important Note

What Exactly Is Suicide? Self-Harm?

The History and Cultural Context of Suicide

What Causes Suicide or Self-Harm?

Why Would Someone Engage in Self-Harm?

How Does Culture Treat Suicide and Self-Harm? How Does That Influence Teens?

Do Some Teens Threaten Suicide or Self-Harm to Get Attention or Manipulate Others?

Why Do Seemingly Happy People Commit Suicide or Harm Themselves?

What Steps Can I Take to Help Prevent Suicide or Self-Harm?

How Can I Know If My Child Is Suicidal and/or Self-Harming?

How Can I Get My Teen to Talk with Me about These Issues?

What Does God’s Word Say about Suicide and Self-Harm?

Final Thoughts

Recap

Discussion Questions

Additional Resources

A Parent’s Guide to Depression & Anxiety

A Letter from Axis

The Black Dog

An Important Note

What Are Depression and Anxiety?

Are Depressed and Anxious Teens Just Experiencing Normal Ups and Downs?

What Causes Depression and Anxiety?

What Are the Spiritual Ramifications?

How Can My Church or Pastor Help?

How Will I Know If My Teen Suffers from Depression or Anxiety?

What Types of Treatments Are There?

How Can I Support My Teen’s Treatment?

A Final Encouragement

Recap

Discussion Questions

Additional Resources

Parent Guides to Mental & Sexual Health

I want to be able to share God’s great design for sex. . . . I want God’s voice to be stronger than the voice of today’s sexualized culture.

JEFF FISHER,

COVENANT EYES

Many families hope to protect their children from radical ideas by walling off the secular world—supervising what books they read, what movies they see, what music they listen to. But secular worldviews do not come neatly labeled so we can easily recognize them. Instead they mutate into forms that we hardly recognize, becoming part of the very air we breathe. The most powerful worldviews are the ones we absorb without knowing it. They are the ideas nobody talks about—the assumptions we pick up almost by osmosis.

NANCY R. PEARCEY,

LOVE THY BODY: ANSWERING HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT LIFE AND SEXUALITY

A LETTER FROM AXIS

Dear Reader,

We’re Axis, and since 2007, we’ve been creating resources to help connect parents, teens, and Jesus in a disconnected world. We’re a group of gospel-minded researchers, speakers, and content creators, and we’re excited to bring you the best of what we’ve learned about making meaningful connections with the teens in your life.

This parent’s guide is designed to help start a conversation. Our goal is to give you enough knowledge that you’re able to ask your teen informed questions about their world. For each guide, we spend weeks reading, researching, and interviewing parents and teens in order to distill everything you need to know about the topic at hand. We encourage you to read the whole thing and then to use the questions we include to get the conversation going with your teen—and then to follow the conversation wherever it leads.

As Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen point out in their book Difficult Conversations, "Changes in attitudes and behavior rarely come about because of arguments, facts, and attempts to persuade. How often do you change your values and beliefs—or whom you love or what you want in life—based on something someone tells you? And how likely are you to do so when the person who is trying to change you doesn’t seem fully aware of the reasons you see things differently in the first place?"[1] For whatever reason, when we believe that others are trying to understand our point of view, our defenses usually go down, and we’re more willing to listen to their point of view. The rising generation is no exception.

So we encourage you to ask questions, to listen, and then to share your heart with your teen. As we often say at Axis, discipleship happens where conversation happens.

Sincerely,

Your friends at Axis

[1] Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), 137.

FORGET HAVING JUST ONE TALK—WE NEED TO TALK TO OUR KIDS ABOUT SEX EARLY AND OFTEN

AT THE TIME OF DRAFTING THIS GUIDE, Snapchat was featuring a story called Crazy Photos of Naked Couples in Vacuum Packs while also offering a channel called Cosmo after Dark that, in its own words, is an X-rated weekly edition that goes live every Friday at 6 p.m. and is exclusively dedicated to all things hot and h*rny. In addition, if you spend enough time on Instagram, you have a very good chance of encountering sexually explicit images, even if you are exploring topics unrelated to sex. We could point to countless other examples of the hypersexualization of our culture, from advertising to the average popular song or TV show. And that’s without even mentioning the ease with which porn finds people online, whether they are looking for it or not.

We mention these examples in order to emphasize the fact that culture is having a never-ending conversation with our kids (and all of us really) about sex.[1] Because of the internet and the smartphone, culture is starting that conversation with our children earlier than ever. We parents can no longer afford to have only one sex talk with our kids or give them a book to read when they hit puberty. By then, it’s too late. We must start the conversation about sex early, and we must continue that conversation as our children grow.

Because of the internet and the smartphone, culture is starting [the sex talk] with our children earlier