Thank you to everyone who shared how they take care of themselves on last Thursday’s post. If you need ideas on how to take care of yourself while you’re caring for your family, you can read all the great ideas HERE!

The winner of the drawing from Thursday’s discussion is Stacy!  Stacy, I’ll send you an email with the instructions for choosing the Hearts at Home book of your choice.

Now for the strategy…

Last night I was cleaning up the kitchen when my 17-year-old starting talking to me about boy/girl relationships.  It was a good conversation and I felt it was time to share the “pie illustration” with him.

This illustration can be shared with any pre-teen or teen who is showing interest in the opposite sex.  A friend shared it with me years ago and I found it helpful with a couple of my older kids when they were teens.

The concept of the “pie illustration” is that each of us comes into this world with a whole pie.  The pie represents our heart which is all of who we are emotionally, physically, and relationally.  Our job before we get married is to keep our pie whole so we can give it to our future spouse.

If we date too early or too much in the teen years, we risk giving away pieces of our pie.  Then someday when we find the one we want to marry, we only have part of our pie to give them.  The parts we gave away may now be replaced with mistrust, hurt, and self-protection—all things that don’t belong in a marriage.

I also shared with him that it is his job as a gentleman to protect the pies of any girlhe is friends with or any girl he likes.  Someday she will be someone’s wife and he needs to be responsible to not take a piece of her pie that she will someday need to give to her husband.

The illustration seemed to make sense to him.  I remember it being effective with a couple of our older kids, as well.

That’s why I thought I’d share it with you.  If you’re looking for a creative way to talk with your pre-teen or teen about purity and making wise choices about dating and relationships with the opposite sex, it’s a good tool to have in your parenting toolbox!

If you’re looking for more strategies for raising tweens and teens check out my book Got Teens? Time Tested Answers for Moms of Tweens and Teens.

Speaking of parenting toolboxes, don’t forget about the free online parenting event I’m “speaking” at starting today.  You can find more info and register HERE.

And it’s still not too late to register for the upcoming Hearts at Home conference in IL. You can find that info HERE.

What about you? Do you have any discussion tools you can share to help communicate purity to teens?

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