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| Introduction |
| The Lord has placed on you as a parent the primary responsibility to teach your children. Though this is a great responsibility, it is also a divine privilege to have Heavenly Father's children entrusted to your care. One of the most important concepts that the Lord expects you to teach your children is the righteous meaning and use of intimate physical relations between a man and a woman. This guide was prepared to help you teach your children about these physical intimacies and to prepare them to follow the Lord's plan in expressing their own intimacy. |
| Intimacy and the Purposes of Earthly Families |
| This chapter will help you review and better understand the ultimate and eternal purposes for which you are raising your children and will explain how the teaching of human intimacy fits into these purposes. |
| Principles for Teaching Children |
| A discussion of ten principles to use in all your efforts to teach in the home, especially as you teach your children about human intimacy. |
| Teaching Infants and Toddlers: From Birth to Approximately Three Years |
| The period of life from birth to approximately three years of age is the time when a child becomes aware of gender—of being a boy or girl. As you read this chapter, remember that one of your important goals is to help your child understand that he or she is a son or daughter of God. Children are privileged to be males or females by divine creation. Help them feel that whichever gender they are, they are of great worth. Teach them that their gender influences their goals and that, depending upon their gender, their goals are to become effective fathers or mothers. Such early gender identity removes uncertainty about the worth of the child and builds security regarding his future. |
| Teaching Children: From Four to Eleven Years |
| These years are relatively free of rapid physical changes and emotional stress. Parents should enjoy this interlude. These years provide a time when you can help your children refine their characters and gain a proper sense of their role identity. Role identity refers to an understanding of oneself in relation to others. In contrast, gender identity involves an understanding and accepting of one's own gender, with little reference to others; one's gender roles usually focus upon the social interaction associated with being male or female. Parents can help children to establish during these years a good foundation for later intimacy by helping them understand true principles about how a son or daughter of God should relate to others in his or her gender roles. |
| Teaching Adolescents: From Twelve to Eighteen Years |
| Adolescence can be a very confusing and puzzling time for both you and your children. Just when your children are trying to learn who they are and where they belong in the world, their bodies begin the profound physical changes of puberty....This section will help you teach your children to understand, put into proper perspective, and control the newly awakened desires for physical intimacy they will have during their teenage years. |
| Mature Intimacy: Courtship and Marriage |
| Courtship and marriage are the culmination of the development that has taken place throughout the first eighteen to twenty years of life. Courtship allows your children to practice in a limited way the roles and virtues necessary in marriage. Marriage permits them to practice the roles and virtues necessary in eternal life....The following ideas should help you teach your children the true principles of courtship and marriage. This is a time when talk and testimony must combine with example as effective teaching methods. |
| (See Daily Living home page; Parenting home page; Teachings About the Family home page; Teachings About Sexuality home page) |
Copyright © 1985 Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All Rights Reserved. |
