Nobody prepares for a battle they don’t know they’re in.   Nobody fights well without preparation.   It is my experience that most parents have never had promptings to sit and consider statistics and study findings to see how they may apply to their own families and children, yet in a room of Christian parents representing 100 fifteen year olds, 25 of the teens will no longer be virgins and a great many more will be experimenting.  While some of the facts are uncomfortable, I believe we need to know them in order to be better equipped to equip our young people.
SEVEN PREDICTORS OF ADOLESCENT SEXUAL ACTIVITY
Begin with the end in mind… Begin as you mean to go… Begin with the end in mind… Begin as you mean to go…
Significant points of note  Not limited to :	Questions/comments	Imagine
Porn 1.  Exposure to explicit media sex     2.  Exposure to pornography	How well do you know and trust the homes in which your child goes to play?   How do you oversee the use of the internet in your home?   How does your school protect its children against inappropriate images?   Do you grasp just how easy it is for children to access porn?   Is your relationship with your child such that they will come to you with these happenings and struggles?   Will you recoil in horror, or rebuild in loving resolve, should you find your child has participated in viewing porn voluntarily?	Young people who acknowledge the tension between hatred and temptation for porn and will discuss that in the light with their parents who lead, pray and advise through the influence of relationship.   Young people who choose to turn from evil and do good.   A God who forgives and restores enabling purity after defilement
TV   3   Adolescents who watch large amounts of    television containing sexual content are twice as likely to begin engaging in sexual intercourse in the following year as their peers who watch little such TV     4.  Television in which characters talk about sex affects teens just as much as television that actually shows sexual activity.	Are you modelling for strength or struggle in your own viewing?  What are you willing to give up?	Young people who know who the “Prince of the Power of the air” is and recognise his strategies… Young people who know he means to groom them for his purposes - not God’s.
Boyfriend/Girlfriend relationships   5    Dating patterns, particularly early age at first date, were found to be significantly associated with most levels of sexual involvement. Early age at first date was associated with a high level of sexual involvement, with 90% of the adolescents who   dated at age 13 or before having experienced    sexual intercourse by their junior year in high school   6    Having a steady boyfriend or girlfriend was also associated with a higher level of sexual      involvement, with 58% of those who reported   having a steady dating partner reporting sexual intercourse involvement	Are girlfriend/boyfriend relationships really inevitable among children and teens?  Are they ‘just a part of growing up”?    Could it be that the media culture grooms them for such but that we as parents , leaders and mentors have done little to present meaningful alternatives for this time in their lives?  What are the alternatives?  Are they realistic?  How can they be achieved and desired?	Young people who give their relationships to God. Young people who submit their relationships to parents for   boundaries and support. Young people who recognise the manipulation of media in promoting relationships at ever younger ages.
Peers   7    Having peers who approved of adolescent sexual involvement was more associated with male than female sexual activity   8    Girls' sexual aggressiveness is not  intrinsically sexual but is related to achievement of social goals.   9    Number of friends perceived to have had sex	While there may be little that can be done to affect the moral standards of a child's peers, what can be done is the provision of like minded community (from the younger age the better) in which children can form and grow friendships.   Are you naive or shrewd about who is the greater influence in a group of friends?  Both bad apples and a small amount of yeast go a long way.	Young people who choose God-minded friendships.   Young people so secure in themselves that they don't need a partner in order to feel that they ‘fit’.   Young people that can be effective as salt and light rather than affected by bad apples and yeast.
Family/Moral Situation 10    Looser ties to family, school & church   11    Having parents undergo marital changes during the child's school years   12   *...who have been raised by a single parent are more likely to have      nonmarital sexual intercourse than those from intact marriages   13   Need for love	Are we enabling our child's connectedness to family and others in the community of God?   Are we on our knees asking God for role models and mentors to help young people in their way?   Are we fulfilling their love languages such that they feel no need to search elsewhere?	Young people who choose opportunities to socialise with those of their moral base than those who confront and deny it.   Young people whose prayerful and diligent solo parents will see teens choose purity against the odds.
Risk behaviours 14.  The number one reason girls cite for having unwanted sex is  being under the influence of alcohol   15.  Riskier peer behaviors   16   Children who use controlled substances at an early age are more than twice as likely to have sex before age 14	Do you always know where your children are? Who they are with?  What they are doing?     How many questions do you ask when they want to go to a party?	Young people who choose not to put themselves in, - or if in, to remove - themselves from risky situations
Early sexualisation   17  A history of sexual abuse   18  "Largely because of the exposure it has received in the media in recent years, teens don't think it's sex, so they're experimenting more and more with  oral sex.   19   Sex Education - A survey conducted in 1987(covering a 10 year period) demonstrated that with virtually unlimited tax dollars, school based comprehensive sex education curriculum saw teen pregnancy double and teen abortions rise 300%. The belief that comprehensive sex education curriculums do not encourage teen promiscuity was also shattered by the survey.  Girls who had no     exposure to school based sex education programs had the lowest rate of pregnancy.  Those who had the most exposure had the highest rates.  In fact the more money spent the higher the pregnancy and abortion rates.   20   Innocence lost - we spend a fortune on education and then complain that it fails. How can we expect  to keep the  attention of sexualized children? Any good teacher will tell you that they can pick out the sexually abused child - distracted, depressed, acting out -- the symptoms are obvious. What is  less  obvious is the semi-abused child, the one whose innocence has been stolen not by some      pedophile hanging around the park or some lecherous uncle, but by a culture that sends sexualized commercials and soap operas into their bedrooms on their very own color TV's.	While the impact of Sex Ed may today be absorbed into general media saturation, it’s effect should not be ignored if planning, hoping and strategising for pure outcomes in school or family education.   www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters   3 April 2007 presented by Richard Aedy Today we bring you the startling news that 'Everyone's Got a Bottom'. Not only that, but it's okay to talk about  bottoms. Enabling very young children to talk about genitalia is one of the best ways of keeping them safe, argues Family Planning Queensland who have published a children's book with a child abuse prevention theme.  (For ages 3 to 8)   Interestingly a contrasting view was presented to me when a friend commented that 20 years ago when children were asked to describe or draw what had happened to them in abuse cases, it was the lack of knowledge of terms which  indicated the sincerity of their accounts (you can’t make something up about a topic you have no knowledge of) and that if a child drew pictures of genitalia it was clearer indication of exposure than now when children know all and have seen all.   Also interestingly was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald that “ABC Learning Centres, the nation's biggest provider of private child care, has said it will not buy the book. "We respect the right of families to discuss private issues in their own way and in their own time," a spokesman said.”  www.smh.com.au  Adele Horin   JUST SUPPOSING the Harris survey results to the left are indeed accurate?  What would that indicate might be the result of children who’s parents read them this book in the best of intention?	Young people who live pure and fulfilled lives despite the strikes against them.   Young people whose conscience is pure enough to recognise when their early warning signals are signalling. Young people who can see evil - hating it and loving good. Finally imagine… Young people who are as innocent as doves  AND as wise (shrewd) as a serpent.
1  Wright, Randal Allen. 1995. “Family, Religious, Peer and Media Influence on Adolescence Willingness to Have Premarital Sex.” Ph.D. Thesis, Brigham Young University. 2  Harris, Mark Allen, Cardell K. Jacobson, and Bruce A. Chadwick. 1995. “Pornography and Premarital Sexual Activity among Lds Teenagers.” Paper presented at American Sociological Association (ASA). 3  RAND Health Rebecca Collins 4  RAND Health Rebecca Collins 5  Monson, Bruce H. 2000. “Four Levels of Sexual Involvement, and Their Association with Dating Patterns, Family Relationships, and Other Related Factors.” Ph.D. Thesis, Utah State University. 6  Monson, Bruce H. 2000. “Four Levels of Sexual Involvement, and Their Association with Dating Patterns, Family Relationships, and Other Related Factors.” Ph.D. Thesis, Utah State University. 7  Monson, Bruce H. 2000. “Four Levels of Sexual Involvement, and Their Association with Dating Patterns, Family Relationships, and Other Related Factors.” Ph.D. Thesis, Utah State University. 8  Fischer, Kay Pamela Justman. 1979. “Precocious Pregnancies: Patterns of Sexuality among White Adolescent Women in the Rural South.” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Florida. 9  Miller, Brent C., Maria C. Norton, Thom Curtis, E. Jeffrey Hill, Paul Schvaneveldt, and Margaret H. Young. 1997. “The Timing of Sexual Intercourse among Adolescents: Family, Peer, and Other Antecedents.” Youth and Society vol. 29, pp. 54-83. 10  , D. J., K. S. Miller, and L. F. Clark. 2000. “Reconceptualizing Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Beyond Did They or Didn't They?” Family Planning Perspectives vol. 32, pp. 111-117. 11  Miller, Brent C., Maria C. Norton, Thom Curtis, E. Jeffrey Hill, Paul Schvaneveldt, and Margaret H. Young. 1997. “The Timing of Sexual Intercourse among Adolescents: Family, Peer, and Other Antecedents.” Youth and Society vol. 29, pp. 54-83. 12  Miller, Brent C. and C. Raymond Bingham. 1989. “Family Configuration in Relation to the Sexual Behavior of Female Adolescents.” Journal of Marriage and the Family vol. 51, pp. 499-506. * However, this effect is diminished by controlling for age, race, social class, & religion. When all of these variables are entered first in a regression equation, the effect of parents' marital status on daughters' sexual status is greatly reduced, but remains marginally significant. 13  Cullari, Salvatore and Robert Mikus. 1990. “Correlates of Adolescent Sexual Behavior.” Psychological Reports vol. 66, pp. 1179-1184. 14  Study: Latrobe University Melbourne 15   Whitaker, D. J., K. S. Miller, and L. F. Clark. 2000. “Reconceptualizing Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Beyond Did They or Didn't They?” Family Planning Perspectives vol. 32, pp. 111-117. 16   Fischer, Kay Pamela Justman. 1979. “Precocious Pregnancies: Patterns of Sexuality among White Adolescent Women in the Rural South.” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Florida. 17 Monson, Bruce H. 2000. “Four Levels of Sexual Involvement, and Their Association with Dating Patterns, Family Relationships, and Other Related Factors.” Ph.D. Thesis, Utah State University. 18  The Sex Lives of Christian Teens  By Jennifer M. Parker 19  Harris Survey 1987 Planned Parenthood 20   Speech to Delaware Pro-Life Conference Dale O’Leary