Relating to your gay child

[Brieuse]

Relating to Your Gay Child

by Bob Davies and Anita Worthen
There are several steps to a new breakthrough in relating with your gay child:

1. Seek God for the truth. Ask Him, “Are there choices I made in my past that were sinful, that I need to repent of, that I need to confess to my child?” “Do I need to ask my child's forgiveness?”
2. Go to your child and talk about it. You initiate the discussion. Confess the truth: “Tony, I know that I made some wrong choices in my life that I believe have profoundly impacted you. You grew up without a father, and that was a result of my wrong choices. Can you forgive me?” Be vulnerable: “Are there specific incidents you remember where I offended you?” Dads, some sons can remember specific incidents of rejection or perceived rejection that cause them pain to this day. This gives an opportunity for them to get out the pain, so it no longer is hidden.
   Remember: It is your child's perception of the event — not necessarily the event itself — that shapes their pain. Some of our words and actions were unintentional; we didn't realize how we were impacting our child's life. In other cases, it was due to our own immaturity, or treating our child as we were treated. For example, the boy who “never felt accepted by Dad.” Maybe his father was athletic and appeared to favor his other son, who was a sports nut. When another son came along and wanted to take violin, Dad laughed and called him a “sissy.”
3. Based on your child's answers to your questions, take the next appropriate step: Ask for forgiveness if necessary. Explain your perception of the situation. (“I didn't realize how much I hurt you that day. Will you forgive me?”) If we want our children to face the truth about their sin, we must model our commitment to the truth about our sin. If we want them to repent, we must model repentance. If we want them to see themselves through God's eyes, we must also be willing to see ourselves through God's eyes. In doing this, we return to our rightful place as a parent: we model Christ-like behavior to our children. It may be the most difficult thing we have ever done, but we are hoping they will do a very difficult thing — leave homosexuality.

 

[MrPirate]

Wow…these people are truly sick

 

[Phinehas2]

These people are truely following Christ's teaching against the current sickness of same-sex and general pansexualism.
The only thing I would point out is that a Christian family will be bringing up their children to recognise that many urges and desires we have are not of God, so the child may have same-sex desires and know its just another temptation. Of course the difficulty for Christian's (and indeed other religions) is the false teaching they hear at school about sexual choices.

 

[Ohioprof]

These poll options are so skewed negatively toward being gay that I cannot check any of the options.

I am gay, and I celebrate that! There is no "blame" for my being who I am.

I am gay, and I thank God for it.

 

[Ohioprof]

The worst thing a parent can do to a gay child is to tell the child there is something wrong with being gay. A parent should accept who the child is and love the child no matter what sexual orientation the child is. A parent should never try to change the sexual orientation of his or her child. Sexual orientation, like height and hair color, are gifts from God.

 

[Ave Maria]

I am straight (I'm actually bisexual) and I believe that parents are not to blame. Sure, environment has some influence on what sexual orientation your child will be but parents cannot necessarily change the fact that a certain child will be gay.

 

[BAFRIEND]

I am straight, and I believe parents cause gayness

I am not saying it is the main cause. But I bleieve that biological causes are a very small percentage. Another suspect I believe could be linked to birth control pills.

 

[DesignerNate]

I think your notion is wrong. While I certainly support parents talking openly to their kids, I think its not really the parent's "fault". When I told my parent's about my sexual attraction towards men I don't think if they apologized to me it would all of the sudden make me some how change. In fact I did have a long discussion with my dad about things I was mad about or things that I felt he wasn't able to provide for me. The conversation was good and it was ultimately healing, but it didn't some how change my sexual orientation. I still feel the way I do and it doesn't seem that any amount of forgiveness for my parents would completely change that. Sure i have my mom and dad issues but who doesn't? I confront these issues with them and talk about it with them, but again it doesn't seem to relate to sexual orientation.