Raising Kids in a Sexually Broken World, Answering Difficult Questions + Not Parenting Out of Fear (w/ Laurie Krieg)

The podcast begins with a personal invitation to two significant retreats, specifically aimed at parents and fathers, emphasizing the importance of spaces for spiritual encounters, healing, and genuine transformation. Laurie Krieg highlights that these gatherings are more than just events—they are communities where people feel seen, known, and challenged in their faith journeys and family lives. The retreats are designed to foster honest conversations and community building, offering practical help rooted in biblical hope.

Laurie Krieg shares her background as the Director of Parenting and Discipleship at the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. She discusses her own experiences with childhood trauma, her marriage to a man with a different sexual orientation, and her journey toward understanding God's design for marriage and sexuality. Her story reflects themes of honesty, vulnerability, and the importance of addressing personal wounds and stories to parent from a place of health. Her work centers on helping parents and the church develop a gospel-centered view of sexuality, especially to equip children in a sexually broken world.

Krieg emphasizes the importance of interpreting the world for children, especially regarding sexuality and identity, through age-appropriate, gospel-centered conversations. She advocates for filling the 'narrative void'—providing children with truthful, positive frameworks to understand complex issues rather than allowing culture to fill that space with confusion or lies. Practical strategies include acknowledging questions with gratitude, providing honest answers (or admitting when one doesn’t know), and guiding children through understanding God's good design for sexuality, reflecting the mystery of Christ’s relationship with the church. She stresses that conversations should be nuanced and tailored to each child's personality and maturity.

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how parental fear, trauma, and physiological dysregulation impact their response to their children's questions and cultural issues. Krieg discusses how reactive responses—such as panic, shutting down, or overreacting—can communicate unsafe feelings to children, leading to shame or confusion. She advocates for self-awareness, patience, and ongoing healing—through prayer, community, and therapy—as essential tools for parents to respond with grace and truth. She underscores that parents’ own stories and wounds shape their responses and that ongoing transformation is necessary for healthy parenting.

Krieg talks about the challenge of parenting in a world filled with brokenness, including culture’s confusion around sexuality. She admits that parents will hurt their children unintentionally, but emphasizes that honesty, humility, and willingness to repair are crucial. She highlights the importance of modeling emotional regulation and teaching children to handle their big emotions responsibly. The conversation also touches on the importance of internal work—addressing one’s own wounds and fears—to parent from a healthy, gospel-centered place.

Laurie Krieg shares practical daily practices, like bedtime routines involving reflection on gratitude, sins, fears, and hopes, which help her maintain high-quality rest and emotional health. She encourages parents to be honest about their struggles and reactions and to seek community and prayer when overwhelmed. The discussion acknowledges that parenting is a lifelong process of growth, and that’s okay. Krieg emphasizes that transformation, not perfection, is the goal—modeling humility and reconciliation for children and trusting that God's grace sustains parents through the journey.