BARE FAITH 8

The Teen Years: Autonomy, Changing Bodies, and Faith

There comes a moment in every family — naturist or not — when you realise childhood has quietly packed its bags. It doesn’t announce itself. It just shows up one day in a cracked voice, a slammed door, a longer shower, or a sudden need for space that wasn’t there before. Bodies change. Moods swing. Privacy shifts. What once felt simple now feels layered, awkward, and tender all at once. And as a parent, you feel the ground move under your feet.

This chapter doesn’t come from a textbook or a conference stage. It comes from verandahs at dusk, from long drives where the real conversations rise between towns, from late‑night chats in a quiet house, and from that strange ache of watching kids grow into themselves right in front of you. I’ve raised teens. I’ve watched my teens become adults. And now I’m watching my grandkids edge toward those same years, carrying the same mixture of courage, curiosity, and uncertainty I’ve seen before.

What I’ve learned over time is simple, even if it’s not always easy to live out: teenagers don’t need tighter control — they need space. Space to choose. Space to renegotiate what works. Space to say, “This feels right for me now,” or, “I need something different.” And they need to know that when they say those things, the adults around them will listen without panic. Naturism, at its best, gives them that kind of space.

When kids hit adolescence, everything gets renegotiated — and that’s not a failure of values. It’s a sign that those values are working. A teen who says, “I want more privacy now,” isn’t rejecting naturism or walking away from what their family has taught them. They’re practising autonomy. They’re learning to listen to their own body and honour what it’s telling them. In the same way, a teen who says, “I’m still comfortable,” is also making a choice — not complying, not performing, but deciding.

The goal was never to keep them in the same patterns they had at eight. The goal was always to help them grow into people who can name their needs without shame or apology. Naturism doesn’t freeze kids in childhood. It gives them the language and confidence to grow out of it with clarity and self‑respect.

There’s a persistent myth that naturist teens must be naïve or sheltered when it comes to sexuality. In my experience — and I’ve watched a lot of kids grow up — the opposite tends to be true. Teens raised in body‑positive homes don’t panic when their bodies change. They don’t confuse nudity with invitation. They don’t sexualise every curve, angle, or difference. They don’t treat their own bodies like problems to solve, and they don’t treat other people’s bodies like things to consume.

They’re not naïve. They’re grounded. They understand the difference between nudity and sexuality because they’ve grown up in a world where people don’t treat those two things as the same. They understand the difference between respect and objectification because they’ve watched adults live it, not just talk about it. They understand the difference between privacy and shame because the people who love them have taught them to choose one and let go of the other. Naturism doesn’t make teens blind to the world. It helps them see it more clearly.

Maree told us, “When our kids were little, naturism felt simple — sunshine, mud between toes, bodies that didn’t know how to be ashamed. But when adolescence arrived, I braced myself. I thought everything would get complicated. What surprised me was how steady it all felt. Not easy — never easy — but steady. One day, our daughter said, ‘I think I want more privacy now.’ She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t embarrassed. She was just growing. And instead of panicking, we listened. We gave her the space she asked for. A few months later, she wandered back into the shared spaces with the same ease she’d always had, because she knew the choice was hers.

“Our son went the other way. He stayed comfortable, even as his body changed. He didn’t posture or hide. He didn’t confuse nudity with anything other than what it was — normal. Watching him move through those years without the shame I carried at his age felt like healing I didn’t know I needed.

“People sometimes assume naturist teens must be naïve. Ours weren’t. They understood boundaries better than most adults I know. They knew how to say, ‘I’m okay with this,’ and ‘I’m not okay with that,’ without guilt or drama. They treated their own bodies with respect, and they treated other people’s bodies the same way.

“The biggest gift, though, was watching their faith grow alongside their autonomy. They never saw God as someone who needed them to hide. They never believed their changing bodies were a threat to holiness. They learned early that dignity isn’t something you earn — it’s something you carry.

“Now that they’re young adults, I can see it clearly: naturism didn’t make them reckless. It made them rooted. It didn’t make them naïve. It made them wise. And it didn’t pull them away from faith. It helped them walk into it with their heads high and their hearts open.”

If childhood naturism is about comfort, then teenage naturism is about agency. This is the season when young people learn to speak sentences that matter: “I’m comfortable today.” “I’m not comfortable right now.” “I want more space.” “I’m okay with this, but not with that.” “I need to rethink what works for me.”

Those sentences are gold. They’re not signs of rebellion or disrespect — they’re the early language of adulthood. A naturist home that honours those words is raising young adults who know how to set boundaries without guilt, recognise coercion when it appears, respect other people’s limits, and carry themselves with clarity into relationships of all kinds. Compliance might keep the peace for a moment, but agency builds character for a lifetime.

Faith has to grow with them, too. Teens don’t need a faith that polices their bodies or treats change as a threat. They need a faith that honours their humanity — a faith that can say, without flinching, “Your body is good. Your choices matter. Your boundaries are holy ground. Your worth doesn’t rise or fall with how you look. Your sexuality is part of you, but it’s not the whole of you.”

When teens hear that from the adults who love them, they don’t drift from faith; they grow into it. They learn that God doesn’t shy away from their changing bodies or their honest questions. They know that holiness isn’t the same as hiding. They understand that dignity isn’t something you earn by behaving a certain way — it’s something you carry because you’re human.

If I could gather every naturist parent around a fire and speak one thing into the dusk, it would be this: your teens don’t need you to hold the line. They need you to hold the space. Hold the space for their questions, even when they make you uncomfortable. Hold the space for their shifting boundaries. Hold the space for their confidence, their uncertainty, and their faith as it stretches and finds new shape.

You’re not raising compliant children. You’re raising wise young adults who know how to live in their bodies without shame and walk with God without fear. And that — in any generation — is a gift worth passing on.