Parent Forum: Recap

Parents and friends gathered for our first ever Parent Forum on January 20th to discuss how we talk to our kids about sex and sexuality.  The discussion was led by a panel of parents, pastors, and experts and included Lead Pastor Corey Widmer, Associate Pastor for Student Ministry Rick Hutton, Parish Associate Nan Clarke, and licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Jera Nelson Cunningham. The conversation -  although on such a tough topic - was frank and honest, and taught parents how to frame these conversations with their children.  

Our panelists shared their own experiences of talking about sex with their children and then parents had the opportunity to ask questions in an open forum.  Dr. Nelson Cunningham also shared helpful context for the age (and developmentally) appropriate times to share things with our children.

Toward the end of the conversation, several parents asked about how to deal with the subject of pornography.  A few resources that might help parents are as follows:

• Covenant Eyes: an internet accountability and filtering program
• Triple X Church: a website with multiple resources about pornography addiction

The Student and Family Ministry teams want to walk alongside parents as we all love and raise our children to love Jesus.  We have resources you can borrow to help jump start conversations about sex.  

We also hope to do more forum-type programming in the future.  If you have ideas or questions that you would like to see addressed, please email questions@thirdrva.org with "Parent Forum" in the subject line.

If you'd like to listen to the audio from the forum, please contact Tracie Meadows. Disclaimer: the content is sensitive so we have decided not to post it here.