Parenting a teenager is hard enough before sexuality enters the picture. And when it does, most parents grapple with finding the balance between protection and permission, values and flexibility, structure and trust. The role you play in your child's sexual development doesn't stay fixed. It shifts as they grow, and knowing when to hold a limit and when to let go is rarely as clear as we'd like it to be.

In this episode, Dr. Finlayson-Fife joins Marielle Melling of the Raising Healthy, Happy Teens Virtual Summit to discuss what sexual integrity is, why it matters for your teen's long-term wellbeing, and how parents can nurture it through every imperfect, evolving stage of the process.

For a deeper dive on teaching kids about sexuality, enroll in Dr. Finlayson-Fife's How to Talk to Kids About Sex course!

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In this episode, Dr. Finlayson-Fife joins Rhonda Farr to talk about men's difficulty with their own sexuality, why higher desire can mask a deeper insecurity, and how men can move from proving themselves through sex to actually blessing their marriage through it. 

Johnny is done being controlled.

His faith shift made him realize just how much every decision he ever made was shaped by others — and he's not interested in that anymore. In his newfound freedom, he's been experimenting with substances in a way that's unsettling for June.

When she says something about his choices, he responds like a rebellious adolescent.

Staying quiet feels easier, of course, but Johnny's choices are having a real impact on her, and she's not sure where her responsibility ends and his begins.

In this preview episode of Room for Two, Dr. Finlayson-Fife works with Johnny and June around the parent/child dynamic that is stifling the intimacy in their relationship.

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Dating, sexuality, and romantic relationships are tricky enough when we're young — but life experience, past hurts, and complicated relationship histories add a whole new layer of complexity for those of us who are single in midlife. The simple answers and guidelines that once felt sufficient don't quite hold anymore.

If it feels like the framework and guidance you were offered as a teen isn't working, it's because it was intended for someone at an entirely different stage in life. Midlife singlehood asks something more, because you've lived enough to know that life doesn't always go as planned, and the choices in front of you now carry a depth and consequence that call you toward the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it.

During this Q&A discussion, Dr. Finlayson-Fife speaks directly to mid-singles — whether never married, divorced, or widowed — answering their real questions on topics including:

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When a spouse's faith shifts, the anxiety that follows is real. Most of us want to find a way around it, so we seek reinforcement from friends, try to pressure them back into their old position, or just avoid the conversation altogether. But avoiding a difficult reality doesn't make the anxiety go away. In fact, it increases it.

In this Q&A episode, Dr. Finlayson-Fife takes questions from those navigating mixed-faith marriages, including how to share where you are without demanding your spouse follow, how to stay collaborative when your worldviews have diverged, and how to raise children when you no longer share the same spiritual framework. Because it is in going toward the hard conversations, not around them, that we grow, and that our marriages can too.

All of us start out following the rules of our family or group because we want to stay safe, earn approval, or belong to something larger than ourselves. Safety and belonging are not small motivations, they're important and necessary steps on the pathway of our moral development.

In this conversation with Larkin Swain of the Sanctuary Podcast, Dr. Finlayson-Fife walks through her three-stage framework for spiritual and psychological development and explains the role of obedience in each stage. We begin in fear. We grow into belonging. And in Stage 3, we use the moral compass we developed in Stages 1 and 2 to make our decisions not from fear or compliance, but from our own integrity. When we make that shift from living by the letter of the law to the spirit of it, it can feel like something has gone terribly wrong. But it hasn't. It's actually the whole point. 

Joy is not something we stumble upon. And it's not freedom from suffering. Nor is it the same thing as happiness. Joy is the willingness to see the beauty and goodness around us, even in the midst of difficulty and loss. Joy is a disposition toward living, not a feeling that comes and goes. And developing the capacity for it takes courage.

In this episode, Dr. Finlayson-Fife joins Monica Packer of the About Progress podcast to explore what joy actually requires of us, why eros love is at the heart of a marriage that stays alive, and what it means to stop trying to change your spouse and start asking who you want to be instead.

Most of us enter parenthood knowing it will be both challenging and rewarding. We expect difficulty. We expect exhaustion. But what we don't expect — and what we can never be fully prepared for — is a life-altering diagnosis and the grief that follows when reality doesn't match what we had envisioned for our child and our family.

In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife joins Brad Broyles and Nathan Palmer of The Polaris Connection Podcast to share more about her own experience as the mother of a son with autism. She discusses the difficulty and overwhelm she faced early on and the unglamorous process of learning to stop trying to solve her son and start truly choosing him.

While this conversation centers on parenting a child with autism, it speaks to the universal challenge of loving our children as they are rather than as we imagined them to be.

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By the time the episode aired in 2023, she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. How quickly things change.

My mom loved me wholeheartedly. She was present through every confident and successful moment in my life and every doubt-filled one. Her love shaped me and the work I do tremendously.

My mother wasn't perfect. None of us are. But she loved with her whole heart, and I have spent my career believing that kind of love is possible — in part because I was the recipient of it.

Whether you are celebrating your mother today, grieving her, or reflecting on the kind of love you want to give — I hope this episode offers you something meaningful.

<3 Jennifer