Parenting Seminar

Wednesday Nights, 6:30-7:30pm

Join us on Wednesday nights Spring 2024 for a Parenting Seminar called SAFE: Sexual Awareness & Family Empowerment.

This seminar will challenge parents to think about the facts they must teach their children about such important issues. Even more importantly, we dive into the “why”—the narrative-- that provides the substance for these facts and how they fit inside your family’s unique story and belief-system. It requires some intentional thought and action, but it is necessary to help our children alongside this journey of being a holistically healthy human being.

We will discuss how we become the primary transmitters of information about sex and safety to our children. We will discuss the many facets of child safety including education about sexual development and sex education, teaching body awareness and empowerment to our children, and eliciting a strong supportive adult network to help us with this heavy responsibility of keeping our children safe.

The SAFE Seminar will be led by LeAnn Gardner (LISW-CP, MDiv), a licensed clinical worker and ordained minister.

This Parenting Seminar is part of the Wednesday Night Connection Activities at the church. Join us for dinner in the Fellowship Hall at 5:00pm and adult worship & prayer time at 6:00pm in the Fellowship Hall. The Parenting Seminar will start at 6:30pm in Room 251.

Weekly Overview:

·       Module 1: Introductions: Setting Ground Rules and goals for time together, take pre-test.

·       Module 2: Sexual Development/Sexual Education: Reviewing stages of sexual development and talking about sex during each stage of development using your family’s unique worldview and narrative. Suggestions are also given as to how to respond to questions from a curious child and how to initiate conversations about sex with a more reluctant child.

·       Module 3: Normative sex play vs inappropriate peer to peer sexual contact/boundaries: Teaching appropriate boundaries and body empowerment to children.

·       Module 4: Intuition and Children: How to use it as a preventative measure as well as using and trusting your own intuition about your children’s safety.

·       Module 5: The Circle of Safety: Building a community of other trusted adults to help protect your children.

·       Module 6: Common Safety Myths: (example: stranger danger, myths of sexual abuse).

·       Module 7: General Safety Information: (example: questions to ask before a child visits a friend’s home, sleepovers, and what knowledge your child should have before allowing them to walk to school or ride their bike in the neighborhood).

·       Module 8: Creating a Family Manifesto: The “what now” in the form of a family action plan.

·       Module 9: Closing: Take post-test and complete evaluations, Final Questions and Wrap-up.