Parents and Caregivers As Sexuality Educators: Small Group Ministry

In a small group setting, adults explore their roles as the most important sexuality educators their children will have.

Twelve 90-minute sessions invite parents and caregivers to explore their role as the primary sexuality educators of their elementary through teenage children. Using a small group ministry format, adults engage with topics including Gender Identity, Relationships, Social Media, Unintended Pregnancy, and Consent. This program can be run concurrently for parents and caregivers while children or youth engage in an Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality education program. The sessions can also be incorporated into an existing small group ministry/Chalice Circle series for parents. Sessions are authored by Robin Slaw, an OWL trainer and credentialed UU religious educator.

The information and attitudes that adults share with their children—intentionally or by default—carry extraordinary power. Many adults struggle to wield this power effectively and confidently. Often, their own experiences, perspectives, and worries get in the way. These sessions invite parents and caregivers to find support and courage with one another.

Download the entire program (Word, 127 pages): Introduction, Preface, and 12 sessions.

Explore the program online:

Preface

Robin Slaw

Our children absorb messages from every second of their lives.
Introduction
Welcome to a program for Unitarian Universalist parents and caregivers who seek support and skills to be effective sexuality educators of their children.
Session 1—Hopes and Concerns for Kids’ Sexual Health
This 90-minute session creates a welcoming space that invites parents and caregivers to engage with one another and form a commitment...
Session 2—Communication: How Do We Talk about Sex?
Many parents and caregivers avoid talking about sex and sexuality for fear of doing it wrong. Yet even imperfect conversations can build an adult’s comfort and skill, a child’s trust, and positive, healthy communication around sexuality-related matters. In this session, participants recall both...
Session 3—Gender Identity: Exploring Emotions Around Gender
Parents and caregivers help to shape a child’s healthy understanding of both their own gender and the gender diversity out in the world.
Session 4—Sexual Orientation: Supporting Self-Discovery
In a liberal religious community, parents and caregivers may be reluctant to share any discomfort they may feel about a child’s emerging sexual orientation. This session opens a nonjudgmental space for adults to be honest with themselves about feelings, questions, and concerns. Participants...
Session 5—Relationships: Guiding with Wisdom
Relationships bring potential for love, loss, increasing levels of sexual contact, and emotional or physical abuse. They may develop in a variety of ways and stages, from the initiation of dating through different levels of physical intimacy and sexual contact.
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Session 6—Sexual Health: Be a Trusted Source
Many adults worry, long before their children’s puberty, about sexually transmitted infections (STIs, also called sexually transmitted diseases or STDs), abusive relationships, unintended pregnancy, and other sexual health hazards. This session helps adults channel their worries into a long-term,...
Session 7—Decision Making: Ready, Set, Let Go!
Adult concerns include harm that can result from a child’s own decisions. With sexual decisions, the stakes can feel quite high.
Session 8—Consent: Building Healthy Boundaries
Parents and caregivers are rightfully concerned about their children’s exposure to unwanted touching or sex. Adults cannot control the sexual opportunities, risks, or coercion their children will encounter. However, parents and caregivers can be role models for self-care and mutual respect. And...
Session 9—Social Media: Integrity in a Changing World
Interactive media define the social worlds of many children and most youth today. Because the youngest generation is always on the forefront of new modes of communication, kids may inhabit a social landscape that is a little (or a lot) unfamiliar to parents and caregivers. In this session,...
Session 10—Pornography: It's Not Sex Ed
Sexual imagery is so prevalent in advertising, on television, and on the Internet that even young children are exposed to it, despite adult efforts to limit access. Whether they deliberately seek it or not, today’s children are likely to encounter Internet pornography before they become...
Session 11 - Unintended Pregnancy
This session opens room for conversation around adolescent unintended pregnancy. While some parents and caregivers in this workshop may consider their...
Session 12—Ethical Non-Monogamy
This session introduces relationships that are ethically non-monogamous or polyamorous. These terms refer to having consensual romantic relationships...