Tonight I’m asking myself a question, “Does a child’s perception of feeling unloved physically make him or her more vulnerable to harm from our sex-saturated culture?”

Awhile back my mom gave me a copy of the 5 Love Languages book. It was good– gave Lee and me a lot to talk about. (Ok…. Mostly it was food for thought for me, and we had a few conversations about it together!) Eventually, the conversation turned predictably to our children. How can we better understand how to love them?

All of our children respond to physical affection. In some ways, it can be overwhelming, especially if I’m tired or busy and find physical connection distracting or distressing. It is helpful to remember that while it’s okay to teach my children appropriate ways and times to reach out physically, how I redirect them matters greatly.

My concern is that if I’m always pushing away, they’ll find other ways to feel loved physically, and that puts them at risk.

“No, Don’t touch me!!!” said in a dramatic, overreacting tone, is different than reaching out to hold their hands and saying gently, “Now is not a good time for a hug.”

I’ve been working on not screeching when I’m being hugged by sticky hands, and being more intentional at small touches. Sometimes I just put my shoe next to theirs at the dinner table. I’ve been trying to hold my youngest’s hand when I give her instruction. I keep waiting for them to be embarrassed at public affection, but they still like it.

I asked one child, “When do you feel most loved by mom?” The response wasn’t surprising, but I was surprised to hear it verbalized. “When you cuddle with me.”

I also have been trying to verbalize with my children that physical affection is not the only way to love someone. Your sister still loves you, but she wants to sleep in her own bed. It’s okay.

Have you considered how Jesus showed that he cared about people by physically connecting with them in some way? Tonight I’m praying that God will give me wisdom to know to reach out to my children physically.

And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. Matthew 8:14-15

Awhile back, we talked about good touching and bad touching.

At one point, I said, “It’s not good to touch someone…” and Bethel finished “when you have dirty hands.” Yes, we’re off to a good start.

I started out talking about mommies and daddies. They like to touch each other. They kiss, and sleep together because they are married. Mommy doesn’t hug other daddies at church, does she? [Yes, I realize that some mommies do] The idea is that God made a context for touching. Touching is good in the right context.

We want to prepare ahead of time for responding to inappropriate touching. It means that some innocent touching is discouraged, but especially when children are young, they are vulnerable.

This is what I told our children they could say “I want to be your friend, but I don’t want to hug you.”

One child responded, “But I like to hug them.” All right, hug your cousins, then.

I’m reminding myself that teaching is a process, not merely a series of lectures.

A few days ago, I mentioned that I wanted to teach our children appropriate physical contact between boys and girls. I’ve been praying for wisdom in this area. Am I being too sensitive? Am I worrying too much? Does God’s Word have anything that will guide me as I teach my young children to be pure?

On a whim, I did an internet search on teaching purity to children. Two of the books I saw mentioned were ones I’ve heard of before but not picked up: The Princess and the Kiss or the guy equivalent The Squire and the Scroll. Maybe I will someday. I looked them up recently to see if they would be good to add to our library. When I read the summaries, particularly with a son in mind (since he’s my oldest. I’ll be thinking about my daughters soon enough), I started feeling dissatisfied with this approach (although I’m certain these books have been a blessing and useful tool for teaching purity).

It’s not that they’re saying anything unbiblical, as far as I can tell. It’s just that King Solomon compiled a whole book in part designed to help young people be pure. Why not start there? I was convicted that I was looking for a book, someone’s words, maybe a nice bulleted list or step by step instructions somewhere, without first considering what the Bible had to say. Have you ever done this?

So this afternoon I opened Proverbs while thinking about purity and my children. I was struck that I’m worried about a fruit (kids touching) without even thinking about the roots (in a sense wisdom). My children need to learn to love wisdom. That was Solomon’s emphasis quite a bit before he began talking about the “strange woman” (the immoral woman in the Bible).

I’m not giving up on the topic, but I’m thinking that this is where I’m going to start my searching for wisdom on this topic.

There are some other purity places in the Bible, but I don’t want to get that specific yet! I might not bring up this topic for awhile, but I’ll be reading God’s Word and thinking and praying.