Talking about romance
Our children are surrounded by images of romance, in stories, films, tv and even the chit chat in the playground.
They hear about flirting, being attracted to someone and falling in love and living happily ever after. And the subtext of most of these stories is attractive man meets attractive woman; they are captivated by each other’s appearance and that is the basis for a life-long happy ever after. The message our children is hearing is that physical attractiveness is the main way to happiness in love, so they need to pursue that in order to find romance.
In episode 17 of the Parenting for Faith podcast, Rachel offered three ideas for helping our children develop an alternative view that will help them build a healthy view of romance and love that reflects God’s heart for us.
You can listen to the clip below, but here are her three suggestions:
- Create an alternative romance story for them, one that shows them that real life romance is rarely eyes locking across a crowded room, and is about how real people find and hold on to love – not ending at marriage, but what love looks like in an everyday up and down life.
- Show them stories which don’t have romance in at all: stories of people who are single but pursuing God and live fulfilled, happy and fruitful lives.
- Share the God bits of your romance stories: however he featured in your love story tell your children that.
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