signs of the times

I will devote space at the beginning of each week to share thoughts of others who are much more intelligent and insightful than I, with the hope that their words encourage and challenge you as much as they have me. This weeks thoughts are from Stephen Arterburn's book: Preparing your son for every man's battle.

If your son won’t naturally come to you with His questions, how will you know when to start? What blips will show up on your radar screen?

One thing is for certain: The game will be well into the second half if you wait until you see signs of sexual awareness in your son. In today’s culture, once you see those sexual signs, you’ve waited to long. It’s kind of like running the marathon but waiting until you are thirsty to drink water. You need to start drinking water long before thirst grabs your throat.

As for your son, his friends already flood their talk with jokes about sex well before the onset of their own sexual awareness. Like weeds in a garden, these sexy thoughts spread everywhere and defy control or understanding in his young mind.

Second, students begin experiencing the social pressure of their halftime adjustments well before they are fully sexually aware. Remember Jason’s comment about finding it hard to stand up to his friends? At the time he wouldn’t have known a hot babe from a bale of hay, but if I had waited until he did, I would have left him at serious risk. Why? Because too often , in their experience, our sons will grab hold of anything that gives them a sense of being apart of the in-crowd. If sex is held up as their boarding pass, they may walk through the Jetway and try to get on board, even though their plane hasn’t yet reached the gate.

Third, and most important, pornography’s treacherous, choking tentacles reach early for our son’s throats. The average boy views his first pornography at age eleven, well before he is sexually aware. That’s why it is important to watch for the onset of the Triple-P halftime adjustments rather than full sexual awareness. The Piaget effect will be the first P to arrive, around age eleven. This serves as your early wake-up call, heralding the approach of puberty’s sexual awareness that is sure to follow in just a year or two.


Preparing Your Son