Todd Erickson is the Pastoral Executive at Second Presbyterian Church and serves on the Board Of Trustees at PDS. Todd also served in youth ministry for 27 years. He and his wife, Lynn, recently gave the following points in talk to parents. This is timely for parents of sixth grade boys as your boys are reading chapters 7, 8, and 9 of Flight Plan over the next two weeks. This is valuable to all parents because, as you will read, it’s important to start these conversations early with our children.

Talking to our children about sex can be awkward and intimidating. But, as with every part of your parenting, you don’t face this alone. God loves you and your child, so ask for his help. Ask for wisdom. Ask for his help to listen well and speak well. Pray, pray, pray!

Seven things to aim for in your conversations with your children:

Are you ready for Christmas? If you are like most of us, the answer is something like, “No way! There is way too much to do.”

Building Boys, Making Men wants to help you and your family prepare your hearts for Christmas. There is nothing about Christmas more important than understanding the gift of Jesus in new and deeper ways. To help you understand and enjoy this gift, we have designed a daily advent devotional for families to do together. (For tips on family devotional time, check out our recent blog.)

We’re almost finished with PDS’ annual celebration of ThanksLiving — but hopefully we are just getting started living a life of thankfulness.

By this point in November, I hope you’ve had a chance to see the ThanksLiving wall at PDS. Over the past three weeks, our boys have been looking for ways to practice gratitude every day, writing down what they did on a stick note, and sticking that to a big wall at the school. Three weeks in, the notes have completely filled the first section of the wall and are starting to spill around the corner. We love seeing the wall at the school fill up with sticky notes of how boys have shown thankfulness on a daily basis — and not just to get ready for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Helping Your Son Live Out the November Virtue of the Month

Welcome to November! Our virtue of the month is the Servant Leader. Not sure what that means or how to help your son live that out? Keep reading for an adapted excerpt from our new book 7 Virtues of Godly Manhood: