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In the photo at the top, I put some of the books I’ve been using as a jumping off point for our homeschool sex ed. They really are just a launchpad. I’ve actually used the books I’m reading for my own “continuing ed” when the books I have are lacking when it comes to anatomical accuracy.
I’ll list the books we use in order of age appropriateness.
Life Unto Life pamphlet
We got this from our midwife and have gone through it every time we had another baby coming. It has fantastic illustrations of fetal development, with a small amount of explanatory text.
Before I Was Born, by Carolyn Nystrom, ill. by Sandra Speidel (For kids 5-8)
This book is pretty basic. No editing needed. It helps everyone get their feet wet.
Good Pictures, Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids, by Kristen A. Jenson, MA and Gail Poyner, PhD, ill. by Debbie Fox
Who wants to have a conversation with your five-year-old about porn? Probably no one. You also don’t want to be the second person they find out about it from. I value this book for giving parents a measured, age-appropriate way to talk to kids about pornography. We are reading it for the second time, and I’ll keep reading it every couple of years as younger kids in our house get old enough to understand. There is a handy graphic in the back of the book to help kids remember the key ideas. We use it as review in between reading the book, and all my kids have it memorized.
The Care and Keeping of You 1: The Body Book for Younger Girls, by Valorie Lee Schaefer (For girls 8-10)
We read this one together several years ago, and since then, the girls have kept it in their room as a kind of reference manual. I like it because it’s full of practical information about all the things girls worry about as they are heading into puberty – skin issues, mood changes, sleep disturbances, etc. It comes at it from a very positive place of giving girls the tools they’ll need. In keeping with my focus on options, it gives lots of tips and choices for handling all the changes puberty brings.
The Boy’s Body Book: Everything You Need To Know For Growing Up YOU, by Kelli Dunham, ill. by Steve Bjorkman (For boys 8-12)
This is my boy’s pick, and the book I read with One in sixth grade. It’s full of useful information, without taking itself too seriously. In fact, as I was re-reading it before including it here, I found myself laughing aloud on several occasions. Like The Body Book for Younger Girls, this one does a great job of covering a wide range of concerns and providing helpful info that boys will be able to identify with and use.
What’s the Big Deal? Why God Cares About Sex, by Stan and Brenna Jones (For kids 8-11)
It has been a couple of years since I read this one, and I plan to read it again now that I have another kid in this age category. The book tackles sexual abuse and porn, which I appreciated. For a Christian book, I felt like it took a pretty nonjudgmental tone. I did feel like I needed to edit on the fly in a couple of places because the tone of the book wasn’t totally in line with what I wanted to teach my kids, but overall I like it.
There is another book by the same authors, for kids 11-14: Facing the Facts: The Truth About Sex and You (God’s Design for Sex). I’ve ordered it and may include it in a Part III, depending on what I think.
Almost 12, by Kenneth N. Taylor
This is a good introductory book about puberty and reproduction. But it does not mention “sexy feelings,” which I feel are a quintessential part of being a tween and teenager. Also, it basically equates wet dreams with menstruation, as in, guys have wet dreams, and girls get their period. Um, no. Having your period may be a gateway to womanhood, but it also means that you are the one who could get pregnant if you have sex. Also, mess, pain, and mood swings. It is not a fair thing. There isn’t any male experience to compare it to.
It doesn’t mention the unintentional boners that teenage boys get. That’s something I want my kids to know about. I want them to know this isn’t something boys have control over, and drawing attention to it will just embarrass everyone involved.
It also doesn’t mention the clitorus. Can we talk about how I was 18 before scientists even understood the full anatomy of the clitorus? My kids shouldn’t have to wait that long.
Girling Up: How to be Strong, Smart, and Spectacular, by Mayim Bialik, PhD.
Have you seen any of Mayim Bialik’s videos? Before I said goodbye to FB, I followed her. She is smart, funny, and has a unique perspective, and she isn’t afraid to be different.
Some folks reading what I said above about introducing sex through Christian books may have started to feel their hair stand on end. Here’s my thinking, and this book proved my point: all books are preachy, but Christian books admit it. Bialik definitely has an agenda with this book, and for the most part, it’s the same agenda as I have – helping girls grow into confident young women. But some of her talk about certain topics felt uncomfortably like a sales pitch – the section on diet comes to mind.*
Pros: It covers a wide range of topics, tackles tough subjects while staying positive, and doesn’t shy away from saying that sex is a big deal. Bialik covers screen time, eating disorders, and how to deal with emotions in healthy ways. She provides tons of options for everything she discusses, including all the ways you can deal with your period, and teaches girls to chart their cycles. Yes.
Cons: Like I mentioned, some sections of this book felt a little preachy. Also, the section on sex and dating may sit at odds with your views on sex. It is fairly explicit, so it’s for older kids – I’m glad I read it first. I’ll likely read it to my oldest girl next year or the year after, possibly saving the more mature content for even later. The trouble is, as I mentioned above, you don’t want your kids learning about this stuff somewhere else first.
Bialik just came out with the boy version of this book. I haven’t read it, but I’m interested (Again, maybe I’ll do a Part III?).
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I don’t limit our sex and puberty education to nonfiction. I recently finished reading Judy Bloom’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, with Two. We’ve been able to have a lot of great conversations while reading it. Being able to share it with her means I can be there to answer questions and help her think about what she’s hearing as I’m reading it to her.
*Bialik is a vegan. While there is no animal-eater shaming in the book, I still came away with the sense that she really hopes you will give up meat. I may be reading between the lines. But I would want to come short of advising teens and pre-teens to make a radical diet change their parents, who probably prepare most of the meals, might not be supportive of. I was an unhealthy vegetarian for many years after cutting meat out of my diet, partly because I was living in a house where meat was eaten regularly, and my parents (rightly) did not want to drastically alter what they fed us to accommodate someone who might be experiencing passing fancy. Twenty years later, the fancy has lingered, and meat grosses me out for the most part (For some reason, spicy sausages sometimes seem appealing). I’ve learned how to cook vegetarian. But it has taken a long time to figure it out.
On a side note, one of the parenting problems I’ve been dealing with is what to do about my 15 year old, who I don’t see all day, not respecting my need for space and quiet while I’m trying to write in the evening. If he needed to talk to me, I asked him to come in quietly and ask if now was a good time to talk. I compared it to when I come into his room and start talking to him while he’s playing his Xbox and “make” his character die. I know he gets it.
Being fifteen is hard because it’s tough to remember that you aren’t the only person in the universe. So no less than 100,532 times while I was working on this post, he came in and started talking to me (not quietly OR asking if it was a good time), walked through and left the door to the room open, or passed back through on his way out again, leaving the door open again. I was starting to lose my mind because I couldn’t even hear myself think anymore. Trying to get a moment of quiet around here is impossible! Everyone else is in bed, it’s 9:30 p.m., and the only kid awake is making it his JOB to drive me nuts.
In exasperation, I turned to him. “You know what? I am writing about sex. SEX SEX SEX PENIS VAGINA SEX SEX SEX. But I CAN’T EVEN THINK because you keep coming in here. Are you feeling uncomfortable??!!!” And he just looked at me calmly with a bemused look on his face. “Mom, I wasn’t even looking at what you were doing. Are you feeling ashamed?”
My work here is done.
