Dating Tips For Parents/Students
I Corinthians 6:18 “Flee from sexualimmorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” (NIV)
I am not speaking as a parent who has a student in middle school or high school because I do not have children that old yet. But, I do get to hear and see with my own eyes some of the struggles our students are having in their relationships with the opposite sex. I took a pole the past two Wednesday nights as we continue our Sex and Sunday School series. I was shocked but on the other hand not surprised by the results of the pole. Keep in mind this pole was not taken in a scientific manner or even in the ideal setting, but it was taken the best way I thought we could take it. In the pole taken I asked two questions 1) mark yes if you have had sex (which includes oral sex), 2) Mark yes if you are currently sexually active (which includes oral sex), I defined currently sexually active, “within the last month.” This is what the pole concluded, 54% of both the girls (32 took the pole) and guys (31 took the pole) marked they have had sex/oral sex; out of that same number 19% of the girls were currently sexually active and 21% of the guys were currently sexually active. Like I said earlier this shocked me by the high number but yet not surprised by the fact that our students are sexually active. Why does this not surprise me? As a parent have you spent time listening to the music your students are listening to? Have you as a parent took the time to look at some of the magazine your students are looking at and reading? Take a moment and look into these, not to mention the TV shows that are your students favorites. When you spend a little time looking into this you will see why our students are having such a hard time with being sexually pure! TV, music, Internet, magazines, movies and fashion are full of sex and wanting your student to be active in what “every other student is doing.”
I would like to give just some suggestions on dating to both you as parents and you as students. Looking back at I Corinthians 6:18 we are told to “Flee sexual immorality,” but when the student puts themselves into situations that opens the floodgates of hormones and emotions that is not fleeing that is running to. When we keep a barrier between opportunity and desire it is much harder to fall into the trap that our flesh and Satan wants us to fall in to.
So here are just a few suggestions I would like to offer:
1. Limit Time Alone
a. In a car
b. In a home
c. Even In Public
2. When parents go to bed you go home
a. Never go into the opposite sex’s bedroom.
3. Date in groups (you can have private conversations in a large group)
4. Never lay down with each other
5. Limit close physical contact
Once again these are only suggestions to help you or your student “Flee from immorality.”
If we are going to help our students when the battle of being sexually active before marriage we must teach sex is for the marriage bed and the marriage bed alone. Not only that, we must help our students set up avenues of not even being put into these types of situations.
