In a world that has normalized explicit media and romanticizes unhealthy relationships, parents need to teach children about healthy relationships. Luckily, there are resources to help parents teach children about healthy relationships in a way that works for everyone.

One of the first steps to teaching healthy relationships is to teaching about emotional abuse. If they understand emotional abuse, chances are they’ll avoid unhealthy relationships. To learn more about the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

3 Ways Parents Can Teach About Healthy Relationships

When you teach children about healthy relationships, it’s important to ensure that the resources you use help your kids:

• Initiating open & honest conversations to teach children about healthy relationships. Conversations relating to various aspects of body image, the potential influence of media, and relationships.
• Teaching media literacy. As children and teens begin to understand the intents and impacts of the media, they may be better equipped to seek out and develop healthy relationships and a healthy understanding of intimacy.
• Emphasizing the importance of healthy relationships. In the BTR community, we understand how difficult it can be to teach children about healthy relationships when emotional & psychological abuse have been present in your home. However, Educate and Empower Kids has many resources available to help parents teach these concepts. Not only do they have incredible resources for children, but also for parents.

Transcript: Teaching Children About Healthy Relationships

Anne: I have Dina Alexander on today’s episode. She’s the founder and CEO of Educate and Empower Kids. That’s educateempowerkids. org. It’s an organization determined to strengthen families by teaching healthy intimate education. Including education about the dangers of exploitative media. She’s the creator of How to Talk to Your Kids About Pornography and The 30 Days of Sex Talks. She received a master’s degree in recreational therapy from the University of Utah and her bachelor’s from Brigham Young University.

She tries to be a great mom and loves spending time with her family. We’re talking about how to teach children about healthy relationships. Welcome, Dina.

Dina: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Anne: So Dina and I have known each other for a long time. We’re personal friends. We know each other in real life. And over the years, she has sent me all the books that Educate Empower Kids has produced. And my children love them. My daughter always pulls them out. I think she likes nonfiction better than fiction.

Dina: She wants to figure out life, not just fantasy, right?

Anne: My kids like them so much that I’m kind of sick of them. Isn’t that good?

Dina: Yes, because we all have that as moms. You get this book, you love it. And then after the 10th time, you’re like, Oh my gosh.

Anne: That’s how good they are. I’m like, do we have to read this body image book every night for four months, can we just read Little Red Riding Hood or something? And she’s like, no, we need to learn about positive body image. She’s seven years old.

The Popularity of Educate Empower Kids’ Books

Dina: She’ll never regret it though. As an adult, she can say to her friends that still all hate their bodies. Wait, didn’t your mom talk to you about this? And then be sad for her friends, whose moms did not teach them to care for their bodies and love them as they should.

Anne: So they’re that good. They’re that good that even when I’m sick of them, my kids still want to read them. So that I think is like the biggest endorsement there is.

Dina: That’s hilarious. I love it, love it.

Anne: So, Educate Empower Kids just came out with a new edition of 30 Days of Talks. It has the same topics, but it’s more in depth. Can you talk about the feedback you received between the first and second edition, and why you decided a second edition was important?

Dina: We did a couple of updates over the years, just fixing some language. We find that these topics still intimidate parents. So helping them understand that they are the best source of information, right? None of us have to be experts, but that you as the parent love your kids more than anybody else. And so part of it is helping parents realize you can have these conversations. Also just giving a little more background, each layout has more information. That doesn’t mean you have to cover every piece.

You’re going to see some of it, like where you’re going to go, okay, I’ve covered a couple of those. Oh, but there are five more pieces that I can add if I want to prepare and empower my child with knowledge.

Challenges Parents Face in Discussing Intimacy

Anne: My situation is a little different, because I do this for a living, right? So we’re talking about it all the time at my house. So my kids are familiar with it. We can talk about masturbation, no problem. They ask me questions. Things are very open around here. What’s a typical parent like when it comes to how do they talk to their kids about intercourse? How to teach children about healthy relationships?

Dina: I would say you’re not typical, but parents are getting there, to teach children about healthy relationships. When we first started this, people were just terrified. And I thought it was like a Christian problem, because I’m a Christian and it’s not it. My atheist friends, agnostic friends, Muslim friends, Jewish friends, everybody is scared to talk about some aspect. So that was the first eye opener for us in creating these. We have come a long way.

You know, we started writing these books about 10 years ago. They came out in 2015, and even in that short amount of time, parents are more open to understanding. So many messages bombard my kids. We have made progress, but I would say many parents want to leave this topic to dad and just this topic for mom. Whereas I believe mom or dad can talk about any of these topics appropriately.

As you build that relationship, as you continue that connection with your kids. It doesn’t matter how intimidating a topic is or just because other parents aren’t talking about it. We can’t address these. It’s important that we be that first best source. With your background, your research, my background, my research.

Teach Children About Healthy Relationships: Barriers to Comfortable Conversations

Dina: Yes, we have spent a lot more time talking and sharing that knowledge with our kids, but that’s why it’s 30 days and 30 topics. These are big topics, but we’ve broken it down into tiny pieces, because I want every parent to know you can do this. You’ve got this. You don’t have to have training in education to cover things they’re learning about.

Anybody can do it with just a little study and caring for their child. You can do this. You can teach children about healthy relationships.

Anne: Talk about the reasons why talking about this is intimidating to parents. I guess one of them is, maybe if you don’t say anything, maybe they won’t notice. Like the classic, if you’re changing your clothes and don’t want someone to see you, you’re not gonna yell. Don’t look over here, don’t look, because the second you say, don’t look, what does everybody do? Everybody turns their head.

Some parents have that same idea that we don’t want to bring attention to this. We don’t want to be like, don’t look, and then everyone will look. So there’s that. And then there’s parents who feel uncomfortable talking about it, maybe because they don’t talk about it with their friends, spouses, or other people. So can you talk about the different barriers to feeling comfortable?

Dina: When you look at say the 30 topics we have. Or when you think about okay, what are the things I need to cover in these talks? All of us have something oh, yeah, I can talk about that.

The Impact of Past Experiences

Dina: But we also all have something that we’re like, oh, I don’t want to talk about that. Often it’s because many of us have had either some kind of abuse in our life, some kind of trauma, something deeply embarrassing. Or, our parents were uncomfortable. Maybe they told us nothing. Or maybe they were like a lot of parents who thought it was healthy to not just talk about intimacy, but to add a little dose of shame in there. Not to teach children about healthy relationships.

And so that’s common in that our parents’ generation thought that was part of a healthy talk, just a little bit of guilt. Let me just throw in a little bit of why would I buy the Popsicle? If you’re given the whole, ice cream, truck away for free kind of attitude. Some of us don’t want to put that on our kids, but we’re not sure how to avoid it. Because maybe that’s like in our brain. So people feel uncomfortable, whether it’s about one thing, whether it’s about five things.

Many parents are also afraid, like you said, they’re going to create an inappropriate curiosity. We have a lot of parents who think, Oh, if I start talking about this, they’re going to look it all up. Or heaven forbid, if my child knows how pleasurable and amazing it is, they’re going to go out and start having it tomorrow. And these are just kind of silly, right? Just because our daughters know they have a clitoris, it doesn’t mean they’re going to go out next week, find a boyfriend, and get laid.

Teaching the Positives

Dina: We have to think about, what do I want for my child? I know that I want my kids to have a great life when they’re adults. When they’re mentally and physically ready. And so I’m going to teach them the positives. I’m also going to teach them that curiosity is a good thing. That’s how we have survived as humans for thousands of years. We have to be curious now. I’m also going to teach children about healthy choices though, there is an appropriate way to use that curiosity. And that I have the answers for them.

I’m also going to let them know that there are many unhealthy messages that are incorrect and harmful online. That a lot of times their friends, however well meaning their friends, often have incorrect information. So I’m not just gonna say curiosity is good and leave it at that. I’m gonna explain the world around them. I want to give them a good picture of what the world is.

So that they can make good decisions. You know, so that’s knowing their bodies, understanding how their bodies work, understanding how the opposite gender works, et cetera. So they can make those good, healthy decisions. And teach children about healthy relationships.

Anne: Around here, we talk about how important it is to be educated, and how exploitative material is not education. It will harm your intimate life. And It will harm you. It is abusive to the people in it, and it’s abusive to you. And if you are a child and exposed to it, you are a victim of abuse. The material has abused you, and it’s going to be confusing.

Teach Children About Healthy Relationships: Respecting Women and Their Bodies

Anne: Because there might be something interesting about it. Your body might respond to it. That doesn’t mean you’re bad. But it also doesn’t mean the thing is good at the same time, right? Talking about how you don’t want to be aroused by violence against women. That’s just not going to be good for you. I mean, my kids, at least if someone offered them drugs, they are going to be like, are you kidding me? Never, I’m not doing drugs. That is such a bad idea. And they feel the same way about exploitative material.

Even if they see a hint of it, they’re like, that is not good. I’m not doing that. It’s so dangerous. My son’s 14 now. And then I have a son who’s 11 and interacting with girls, going swimming with their friends, and interacting with women who have bodies. There’s an amusement park right by our house, and it has a water park. And we go there frequently, because it’s literally like 10 minutes away from my house. And one time my oldest son said, mom, I feel uncomfortable here because women are wearing bikinis.

I said, why does that woman have a stomach? And he just kind of looked at me. And I said, well, what would happen if she didn’t have a stomach? Like her stomach is showing, but so is yours, right. So let’s talk about this. Why does she have a stomach? Is it for you to stare at? And then he was like, Oh, it’s so that she can eat. Just one way to teach children about healthy relationships.

Seeing Women As Human Beings

Anne: And I’m like, and why does she have legs? Are they for you? Or are they for her? So now. My son is like, Oh yeah, her legs are not for me. Her stomach’s not for me. She wasn’t created for me. She’s just doing her own thing, and I can respect her and give her space. And look her in the eyes and treat her like a person. This is a human being in front of me. And just because she wears a swimsuit at the water park does not invalidate her as a human being who I need to take seriously. Who I need to listen to and respect.

Stuff like that is so much more important than like, if you see a woman in a swimsuit, eye bounce and don’t look at her. I’m like, what? You’re teaching your kids not to treat other people with respect, which is the opposite of what we want to do. We need our sons to view women as people. To teach children about healthy relationships.

Dina: And it’s unrealistic anywhere to think that you’re going to have people covered up all the time. I love that you are teaching that with your son. Because yeah, I understand how you might become uncomfortable. You know, we’re human. We’re going to look at people’s bodies.

That’s natural and normal, they’re curious, that’s natural for many kids. So I want to validate. Yeah, I also love that you’re teaching. Because a person is dressed a certain way, whether they’re head to toe covered because of a religious reason. Or maybe because they’re at a water park, that they are still human, and that they’re still deserving of our concern and kindness.

Combating Pornography’s Effects

Dina: And that is such a great way to combat the effects of this stuff, because all of our kids will see it as much as we protect them, train them, listen and learn. They will be exposed as kids, as adults. And we want them to see humans as people, not as something for me to devour, not as something for me to get off on. It’s great education, and it’s not something to be done once. And so I love that you had that conversation with your son.

Anne: Well, I think about a women’s professional surfing competition, their uniform will be a swimsuit. If you don’t teach your kids, this is not a sexual situation. This woman is a competitive athlete. Women exercising, in competitions, on track teams, doing gymnastics, this is not a sexual situation. This is their uniform that they wear to do a sport. And that needs to be respected.

It’s crazy to me that there are men who are so conditioned to view women as objects. That they think of surfing or track, like, the hurdles. The hurdles is not sexual. If you use, you might start thinking there’s these things going on all over the place in your head. Instead of how to teach children about healthy relationships.

Dina: Our brains are conditioned that way for everybody who’s like, oh, this is not addictive, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, fine. If you don’t believe that, that’s one thing. But also to think that it does not change your brain and affect you.

Teach Children About Healthy Relationships with Concept Discussions

Dina: I always refer back to maybe 15 years ago. I was reading romance novels for a few months, and I could see that I was starting to objectify people. It did not take long for me to think of other people as available. When before, they had just been other people I walked past or worked out next to in my little community center gym. Again, these are great, great discussions to talk about how social media, television, videos, how they are just so powerful to our brains.

And that we are getting different messages about it all the time, but that we have to stop and think. And so that’s why this is such a great discussion to have over and over. Like, again, like you’re watching sports. Okay, maybe you pause it and talk about it like, isn’t that an amazing athlete? Look at her, do the high jump. Can you believe she can jump that high? Are we talking about how powerful, important, and special our bodies are?

But also talking about what might cause us, whether we’re walking past Victoria’s Secret at the mall. Or something else that affects us, because each of us is an individual. And helping our kids see that within themselves and identify what impacts them. And what is healthy, and what is not. What really angers me about this is that it forces on our kids this idea of what is hot and what is not.

The Media’s Manipulative Power

Dina: And I want my kids to form their own ideas and opinions about what is amazing about it. What is amazing about their body and their partner’s body. It is so important for us to teach children about healthy relationships.

Anne: It’s just gross, violent, vile, evil and exploitative.

Dina: It’s abusive, like you said. I love that you said that. To put that in that context for our kids, to help them see how manipulative it is. Because that right there is a great discussion. And maybe this is an easy talk for a parent who’s intimidated. Looking at different media and seeing how it manipulates us. Like a movie I liked, but I cannot watch again, is Interstellar. To me, it’s a fascinating movie, but to me it is so emotionally strong and in a sense manipulative. Because I get so involved in this movie and the sadness.

Media is so powerful, whether it’s music, an explosion, helping our kids see how this is meant to manipulate us. And at the end of the day, it’s about making money. It’s not about educating us, helping us feel good about ourselves, or helping us have great lives. It’s not. And It’s about manipulating us to make money. So it’s so important for our kids to see that, because this is their future.

My youngest right now is 17. And I remember when I started this a decade ago. Talking to my daughter and saying, hey, you know, it’s likely that the boys you go out with will have an issue with .

Preparing Kids for Real-World Challenges

Dina: She had four boyfriends in high school. Three of them were members of our church, the Latter-day Saints, and all three had an issue with exploitative content.

Anne: We had your daughter on the podcast talking about it. It was called teen dating and violence.

Dina: Oh, yes.

Anne: Yes, we’ll link to that in the show notes.

Dina: Yeah, that’s right. Thank you. Also having to now tell my sons, you know, when they started dating, of saying the days have changed. Because the industry is now targeting our daughters so much. That you will need to have those discussions when you’re dating. You’re going to have to have discussions about it and how that has affected you and your partner’s ideas of it. Whether you’ve seen it once, five times or 50 times, it will affect how you think about it. And how you think about your own body.

And you’ll need those discussions. Our sons need to be aware of that as well. It’s no longer just preparing our daughters.

Anne: All right Dina, so I’ve got 30 Days of Talks for Ages 12 Plus, the second edition in my hands. I’m going to randomly flip this resource to teach children about healthy relationships open and see what we’ve got. Does that sound like a plan?

Dina: Sounds great.

Anne: All right, here we go. So I’m closing my eyes and I am randomly, You will not believe this! 17. When I’m looking at this book, I can see a couple of things. There are some definitions, so it’s got the definition, how to start the conversation, then it has some links.

Teach children about Healthy Relationships with Questions for Your Child

Dina: In the Kindle version, these are all clickable links. If you buy the book on our website, you can choose to buy a PDF, a Kindle version or another kind of ebook that is good for any kind of tablet or laptop. Then those are linkable. If you buy the print version, you would have to type in like the name of the article. Because most of these are articles back to our website that have just a little more information on certain topics.

That’s why we have these additional resources. But like I said, if you buy it from the website as a PDF or as a Kindle. Those are all clickable links.

Anne: Awesome, so one of the sections in this to teach children about healthy relationships is questions for your child. So let’s just read one of them randomly. Okay. I’m going to close my eyes, and I’m just going to point to one of these questions. Here we go, ready? There, okay, How do your friends feel about exploitative material? That’s a good question. When you got feedback from parents, how did they feel about this questions section?

Dina: They loved it because we don’t just pick typical questions of, okay, what do you think it is? How do your friends feel about it? It’s typically not as threatening, because you’re not putting your child on the spot. You’re letting them think about, what are the attitudes around it? That’s been one of the most eye opening questions for me to ask my kids. Like a few years ago, I did a little thing on YouTube about how to identify predators, etc. And I had my middle son, who was 16, edit it.

Conversations start with a Simple question

Dina: And he goes, Mom, everything you said in there was right. I said, what do you mean? In my mind, I’m like, of course it’s right. It’s well researched. But he said, I had a kid in my class one time, show me pictures of nudes of his girlfriend. And I asked him, what are you doing with those? Like, how did you get those?

And he started telling my son how he got those. And he said, mom, it was everything you said in that predator conversation. It was grooming her, giving her compliments, making her feel special. So great conversation with my son about predators, but helping them see that these things are going on around them. And unfortunately, kids are learning predatory behavior at younger and younger ages. Thanks to this stuff, we need to teach children about healthy relationships.

Again, it is a simple question for any of these topics. When you go to the masturbation topic, when you go to the abusive relationships topic or the positive aspects section in this book. Asking them what they’re hearing in school, what their friends are talking about, it’s eye opening. My youngest, who’s 17, tells me about kids talking about their recent escapades. Their body count in the locker room, talking about, you know, on the fifth or sixth date, have moved to intense stuff..

These things are helpful to us as parents to understand what our kids are going through, what they are experiencing. And it also typically helps us realize, okay, I need to talk about these, because everyone else in a sense is talking to our kids about it in some way.

Teaching Our Children exploitative material Is Abusive

Dina: We want our kids to understand I’m a safe place. I’m not going to be angry or judgmental. If you’ve heard something or experienced something, I’m here to love you, give you information and help you be a strong human being.

Anne: And teaching them that these things are abusive. The reason why it’s wrong is because it’s abusive. It’s not wrong, because your pastor said it’s wrong. Or because it’s embarrassing. It’s wrong, because it’s abusive to another human being. And to engage in that type of predatory behavior, you are abusive. You’re harming someone. Because I think back in the day, it was like, if I use, it’s going to hurt me. Maybe I’ll go to hell, but at least I’m not hurting anybody else.

They didn’t realize, 10, 15 years ago, that anytime you do any of the behaviors surrounding it, deceit, hiding.

Dina: Using.

Anne: Any of those things, yeah, using manipulation, you are abusing someone. And that makes you an abuser. If you are experiencing abuse and need support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session. And you need to stop to be healthy. We need to teach children about healthy relationships vs abusive ones.

Dina: Yeah, and that we can do better than just because other people are doing it. Our neighbor, friends at school, friends at lunchtime, we don’t have to do that. Again, that there are simple ways that even our kids can stand up and say to their friends, that’s not cool. That’s bigger than you have any idea of, and I love that you said about teaching our kids that it’s abusive. Because that’s what I love about our books. We’ve made them open, so you can put your knowledge, experience, research, and values into each conversation.

Teach Children About Healthy Relationships: Great Conversations

Dina: You know, all of us have different things that we want to emphasize. We understand that we’ve been through or just get on this whole other level, and we want our kids to get it. And so that’s where these can be such powerful discussions. One of the best side effects when we prepared these books was how great the conversations were. When we teach children about healthy relationships.

We would set out to have a five minute conversation, maybe 10 minutes, and our kids would come back to us with such great questions that the discussion usually went 30, 40 minutes. Because they had such insightful questions, we took them to that place of safety and openness. And also, we asked these questions from the books that were not just typical. Okay, do you understand penis and vagina? It’s like, okay, great. They get that. There’s so much out there these days that we want them to understand that full amazing picture.

Anne: Or the full just blah picture. I mean, it’s great. I simultaneously tell my kids, for some people feels good and awesome. And for me, it was just not great. I didn’t like it, and maybe it’s because your dad is abusive. Most likely, yes, that was why. But I’ve never had it with someone who wasn’t abusive,

Dina: I love that they’re getting that picture. That they’re understanding all the pieces to it. That it’s not like television. That it’s not this amazing, screaming, simultaneous orgasm every time, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Anne: It’s never like that. For the people who are like, Oh, it is beautiful. I’m always like, is it? I don’t know. It’s fine.

It’s About Creating And Sharing

Anne: I’m not anti for sure. But I didn’t enjoy it at all because of my situation, right. And to let our sons know and our daughters know it can be, I hear from other people. I believe you, that it can be great. That’s awesome, shine on. Good for you. But if there’s abuse involved, it’s not going to be fun. It’s not going to be enjoyable. It’s going to be miserable for somebody. And also, the person who is the predator in that situation, it might feel good for that moment, but they’re not getting what it was meant to be about.

Dina: There’s no way for an abuser, or like a predator, to not go to that dark place.

Anne: It’s all about them. It’s about that hit. And it’s about their relationship to themselves, but it’s never about the the we.

Dina: That’s a perfect analogy, because it’s never about the partner, it’s always about themselves. My own orgasm, my own pleasure, and what I’m going to do to you. Not what we’re going to do together, and create and share as partners. So that’s exactly right. And again, helping our kids see the ins and outs. When we teach children about healthy relationships.

But I think also helping them understand the power they have within them to have good relationships. But also empowering them with this knowledge to understand that full picture. That yes, it can be amazing, but it can be horrific.

Anne: Or just boring.

Dina: It could be.

Anne: It can also be boring. I remember telling my ex, is it okay if I read …

Dina: Ha Ha Ha

Anne: … can I read during this? Because this is so boring.

Amazing Resource For Parents To Teach Children About Healthy Relationships

Dina: Oh man, I would have loved to have seen that face.

Anne: Yeah, I was like, what is going on? I just feel like you’re just like this hairy bear and…

Dina: Ha Ha Ha

Anne: …you’re literally like poking me with a stick on the inside. And it’s just not that fun. I’m sorry, would you want to get poked with a stick?

Dina: No.

Anne: No, anyway, he was always so offended when I was like, eh, this is just whatever. Why is this happening to me?

Dina: I love you, I love you. You are amazing,

Anne: And you wonder why.

Dina: Woo!

Anne: Yeah.

Dina: I love it.

Anne: You’re amazing, Dina. Thanks for coming on today. To learn more about all the amazing books that Educate Empower Kids has produced, go to educateempowerkids.org. Thank you so much for spending time with me today, Dina.

Dina: Thank you so much for having me. I loved it.