Debbie's Homeschool Corner: Passport2Purity

As we all know, the teen years can be tumultuous for teenagers (and their parents.) As they deal with hormones and puberty, teens need to learn to deal responsible with increased peer pressure, less supervision from parents, and many temptations. It would be great to have a way to inoculate our children from all the bad things that might happen, to insure that child-parent relationships stay strong through high school, and to see our sons and daughters finish the teen years with a strong faith in God. While there are no guarantees, one of the most important things we parents can do is to develop strong relationships with our children and to prepare them for the upcoming changes before those changes hit. Our children’s innocence is under attack from the culture and media, so it is important for us parents to provide information and support for the values we hold.

The Passport2Purity Getaway Kit, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey of Family Life is a complete guide for a getaway weekend for a parent and a pre-teen designed to build communication, discuss the upcoming physical changes, the “birds and the bees,” peer pressure, dating and more. The kit components include:

Tour Guide for the parent: This book gives the parent step-by-step directions for preparation before the getaway, a list of what to bring, and discussion topics for each segment of the program.
Travel Journal for the preteen including 25 follow-up devotions: This Journal is colorful and engaging and provides space for note taking during the CD sessions and application questions to answer after the sessions.
8 CDs containing 5 sessions, scripture memory songs and downloadable MP3’s. These CDs provide great instruction, fun stories and examples, and do the initial “teaching” for you, opening the door for further discussion between the parent and child on each topic.

How Does the Program Work?

The 5 sessions cover:

Following God’s plan
Peer pressure
Factual information about growing up and sex
Committing to purity
Dating

The cd’s guide you through each of the 5 sessions. 1-2 hours of stories, instruction, and scripture memory songs present the content. The child follows along in his journal, occasionally taking notes or answering questions. Periodically, the cd is stopped for discussion between parent and child. Each session also includes a fun project that illustrates the key concept. The child will mix play dough colors to illustrate the influence of peers, try to quickly assemble a puzzle without the box cover picture to show the need for a map (the Bible), try to light a match that has already been burned out to demonstrate the loss of virginity, and squeeze water through holes in a balloon representing one’s purity. The entire weekend is a mix of fun, serious talk and enjoyable applications of concepts that should stick with the pre-teen for a long time.

Our Experience

We didn’t have the opportunity to do a getaway weekend before I had to write this review, so we altered the schedule. We spread the lessons out over a week, doing one session a day. Emily is 15, a bit older than the target 10-12 year old ages so we’ve actually discussed and/or encountered many of these topics already. Emily thought that some of the material was a bit “young” for her, but agreed that it was perfect for a pre-teen.

The series opened with a fun drama about some kids on a treasure hunt, leading to a lesson about the importance of having a plan for life and that the Bible provides that plan for us. In addition to strong scriptural teaching and factual content, the series included fairy tale type stories, interviews with kids, teens, and adults, and illustrations from the Rainey’s own family. Although the content is certainly serious, the mix of content kept it feeling fun and not too heavy or boring. It actually isn’t until session 3 that the more uncomfortable topics are introduced.

All of the sessions were excellent, but sessions 4 and 5 about purity, boundaries, and dating were excellent for promoting good conversation about choices that Emily will be making in the near future and the importance of going against what society teaches to follow God’s way. The audio content repeatedly stresses the need for parents and teens to determine the boundaries for their own family.

The only aspect that neither one of us was thrilled about were the memory songs. The concept was good, but the music wasn’t really engaging for the pre-teen crowd. The songs were each played several times throughout the sessions, so the listener was still exposed to the important scripture verses, even if they weren’t catchy enough to want to listen to later.

I think this is a great program and wish that I’d had it for all of my children when they were the appropriate age. I also would really recommend doing the getaway weekend as the program is designed, since that would make it more memorable than spreading it out the way we used it.

Learn about the traps your preteen will soon face as a teenager and how Passport2Purity will help you to guide your teen through those difficult years.