“How do I talk to my young kids about a friend who’s transitioned?”
A parent recently asked this about their former babysitter, someone they love and who has since medically transitioned. They wanted to welcome this person into their home during a visit, but didn’t know how to explain what had changed to their 5- and 7-year-old.
Here’s one way I’ve seen that conversation go. It’s grounded in truth, age-appropriate, and full of grace:
“When you look in the mirror, you can tell you’re a boy, right? That’s because God made your body to be a boy’s body. He also made you to feel like a boy on the inside too. That’s how God intended things to work. But sometimes, because of how the world is broken, people don’t feel the way God intended.
Like how some people get sick, or some don’t have enough food. Those things aren’t their fault, but they’re real.
For some people, the brokenness in the world shows up like this: they have a boy’s body, but they feel like a girl on the inside. That doesn’t mean they did something wrong. It just means they’re hurting in a way most of us aren’t.
God encourages them to connect with and appreciate their boy-ness and patiently wait until Jesus returns to make everything right, either while we’re living or after. But sometimes, people get impatient and do the opposite of what God intended because they want to fix it themselves. They might change their name, take medicine to change their body, or ask people to call them ‘she’ instead of ‘he.’
God doesn’t want them to take that medicine or change their body. But Jesus also asks us to treat people with kindness, even when we think they’ve made a mistake. That’s why, when they come visit, we’ll use the name and words they ask us to. Not because we agree with every
choice, but because we love them.”
It’s possible to teach your kids about God’s design and how to show real respect to people who see things differently. It starts with simple, honest conversations like this.
Watch the full video at https://www.instagram.com/pieterlvalk/reel/DKPwZFMxRYy/.
