This post concludes a four part series on taking a Passport to Purity retreat.
Part One: An Overview of Passport to Purity
Part Two: Preparing for the Retreat
Part Three: 8 Tips to get the most out of the retreat
Today, I’m going to share tips for when you get home from the retreat.
Once you’re home from the retreat, your job isn’t finished. This is an ongoing conversation that you’re going to have to have for the next few years of your child’s life.
You can be watchful and try to catch things before they come up, but it’s impossible to know when your child will be faced with things. So I suggest that you intentionally set aside times to revisit the topics you covered during your retreat.
Trust me, it’s far easier for a twelve year old to decide how far she is going to physically go with a boy when she’s not even dating yet. When your daughter is sixteen and driving off with a boy… you’ll be glad you kept this conversation going.
Some ideas to keep the conversation going:
More Resources
Have your child read the 30 Days of devotions included in her journal during her daily quiet time.
Lily Body Book This is a book about the changes girls go through, from a Christian perspective. I highly recommend it!
Mother Daughter Devo Read about our experience with this book here.
A Daughter’s Worth We used this book for Bible study last year and both my daughter and I really liked it.
Follow up with weekly or bi-weekly tea time.
I cover lots of subjects during this time, and the focus is more on her walk with Christ, but at least once every couple months, I try to revisit some of the verses and things we talked about at our retreat. Ideally, I try to recreate one of the treats we had on our retreat to enjoy with our tea time. But that doesn’t always happen!
Dates with the other parent.
One idea shared on the CDs is for the student to go through So You’re About to Be a Teenager with their dad (or mom if it’s a father-son retreat). There is a lot of review in this book of what you’ve covered in the retreat, but now they’ll be discussing it with their other parent. If your spouse is unable or unwilling, I suggest you get the book and go through it yourself.
Yearly Purity Retreats
When I took my second daughter on her first retreat, my oldest daughter was already engaged to be married. I said to my older daughter, “I’m thinking of taking Soleil to do something like this and talk about purity every year.” Coco said, “Do it!” She knew the value of this time together and the importance of covering this topic and she wanted her little sister to be blessed by that.
Soleil and I have a trip tentatively planned every year. This will be easier for me because I only have one kid left at home. But maybe you could pencil in on the calendar to take half a day to go to a nice, long lunch and have a conversation about purity. If you have multiple kids that went through the retreat, you could always do these follow ups with them together.
This year, we went on our second purity retreat together and I designed our conversations and study myself. (I’m hoping to have that resource available for you soon.) I was so excited to see that Family Life has a new set of CD’s out for older girls (and for sons, too). So we’ll be doing Passport to Identity next year.
I can’t decide what the best part of this experience is. Seeing my daughters’ eyes well up as she read our letters to her. Talking about her future with boys and being blown away by how insightful she is. Hearing their heartfelt prayers and being so thankful my daughter knows Jesus. Staying up most of the night; chatting and giggling in our double beds. Enjoying our fun outings, being able to focus only one daughter at a time.
If you’re on the fence about taking one of these retreats with your son or daughter, I can’t recommend it enough. You will not regret it!
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