TAKE A NEW APPROACH TO

DATING AND RELATIONSHIPS

Parental stress goes up a notch as soon as kids enter the dating scene. How can you encourage your kids to have healthy relationships with members of the opposite sex yet stay safe and morally pure? Youth leader Josh Pease offers these suggestions that just might surprise you:

• Don’t demonize sex, but don’t overglorify it either. As you encourage kids to save intimacy for marriage, also emphasize that sex shouldn’t be just about self-satisfaction.
• Model healthy relationships. Let kids see what a sacrificial relationship looks like—on good days and bad. Show them how to work out problems.
• Teach an “others-focused” approach to dating. Instead of just asking, “Is this person right for me?” dating teenagers should also ask, “Am I right for this person?” Other questions to consider: By my behavior, do I influence the person I’m dating to be more like Jesus? Am I focusing more on what I can get out of them or on what I can do for them? Is my presence in their life right now distracting them from who God is revealing them to be?

As we emphasize abstinence and the beauty of God’s plan for marriage, Pease says, let’s also teach kids to model Jesus’ sacrificial love in their relationships now. That way, they’ll be better equipped to thrive as spouses in the future.