About a week and a half ago, I posted on what the “unhooked” culture means for youth ministry. As I finished reading the book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, a few thoughts popped into my mind as to the implications for ministry to today’s adolescence…

Going Beyond the “One Time” Sex Talk

So often we encourage parents to talk to their kids about sex, and many parents that do end up talking to their kids about sex muster up the ability to only have “the big sex talk” with their kids and think that will suffice. Also, it seems that the talk parents are having with their kids about sex is the mechanics side of sex and the human body. This is stated in the book:

“Opportunities for instruction on the mechanics of sex are plentiful, but conversations about the context and aftermath of sexual relationships are not. This is in part because [people] are frequently uncomfortable talking about the negative, as well as positive, emotions of intimacy. So they put the entire responsibility on students to figure things out for themselves.”

Kids are going to learn about sex. The question is through what means will they get their education? Just because parents talk about it once, does not mean that kids will “get it”. For those of us working with adolescence, we need to continue to encourage parents to be proactive in the sex discussion, and try to provide them resources to help provoke discussion. Also, I think we need to try and create spaces and opportunities in which parents and kids can dialog about the sex and sexuality.

    Dating is Subjective

    What I mean by this is with books such as I Kissed Dating Goodbye to I Gave Dating a Chance and everything else in between, dating has to up to the individual person. For some people dating is fine, and they can develop healthy boundaries within which to work, and for others dating is not worth the time and effort. No matter where you stand on the dating continuum, we need to educate adolescence to date for the right reasons. The ultimate goal of dating is not sex, but I think so often our culture communicates that sex is the pinnacle of a relationship. Dating should be about teaching adolescents how to care and love for another person through easy and difficult times, learning to identify and deal with the range of emotions that comes with “falling in love”, and helping each other discover who God has made the other person to be.

    Modeling Healthy Sexuality

    It’s no surprise…Kids are influenced by what they see around them. Going deeper with this idea: Research continues to show that the way kids see the world and the choices they make relies more on the parents then any other entity (more than friends, media, church, etc.).

    “Here it was again, a reminder that girls, like guys, learn how to love, care for and be sexual with a partner first by what they see at home. I heard this from each girl in this book, dropped casually in conversations, little details about how their parents did or did not make time for each other, did or did not play with each other, did or did not express affection for each other, did or did not negotiate differences well.”

    Sex and sexuality will not necessarily be learned in a seminar or a series of teachings at church or schools, but it will be learned at a child’s home. For married parents, their kid’s view of marriage and how to treat someone and expect to be treated themselves, comes from the interaction mom and dad have with each other. For single parents who choose to date, this is a tremendous opportunity to redeem what was lost in that kids will watch how they approach dating, and pursue relationships from this point forward.

    Hooking Up Makes Sense to the Stressed Out, Overcommitted Kids

    One of the consistent themes throughout this book is the idea that kids choose hooking up over dating because they just don’t have time or energy to put into a relationship. Amidst trying to get into grad school, preparing for a career, and building a portfolio, being in a relationship is the last thing these kids want. One of the students said:

    Dating is a drain on energy and intellect, and we are overworked, overprogrammed, and overcommitted just trying to get into grad school, let alone get married. It’s rare to find someone who would…want to put their relationships over their academics/future.

    This contributed to one of Stepp’s theories:

    In order to accomplish the goals that their parents–and by this time in their lives, they–want, they believe they can’t afford to invest time, energy and emotion in a deep relationship. Hooking up appears to be a practical alternative.

    While trying to create a system and a culture in which kids do not have to be stressed out is a huge task, I think that we need to make sure that we are not contributing to this epidemic in the church. So often we create program and activities that depend on the adolescents to “head up” or be in charge of in order for it to work. While I get the whole “creating student leaders”, I can’t help but wonder if in doing so we might be contributing to the stressed out adolescent, and in turn contributing to the hook up mentality? I’m not saying today’s student leaders are on the fast track to hooking up tomorrow, or even that student leadership is a bad thing, but I definitely think that we need to re-examine how student leadership might be contributing to the “stressed out, overcommitted kid” and his/her tendency to hook up in the future.

    These are a few of my thoughts…I would love to hear what other implications this hook up culture has on youth ministry, and our dealings with unhooked adolescence and emerging adults.