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Cyndi Sarnoff-Ross is a licensed psychotherapist with almost twenty years of clinical experience in the fields of clinical psychology and organizational management br br She has worked extensively with a wide variety of…
FAST FACTS
Once your children hit middle school they have a basic understanding of sexuality and the mechanics of the reproductive system. They will have this information whether or not you have given it to them. As I've mentioned in the previous blogs on the subject, you need to decide if you want that information to come from you or from kids on the playground, the internet or some other unwanted source. There are still a great many facts about how the body works that they will need to learn, but they will most likely have the basics down. This is a good time to restate (hopefully you have had this conversation with your child at a much earlier age) that their body is their own and that they should never be made to feel physically uncomfortable by anyone.
Their body is beginning to change and for some girls puberty is starting much younger than it did in the past. This is the time to talk to your child about nocturnal emissions, orgasms and menstruation. Talk to them about masturbation and how it is a good release for some of the sexual tension they may begin to feel as their body changes. Explain to them why hair is beginning to grow on their body, why they may start to see acne appear, breast buds and voice changes. In short, this is the time for the lesson in hormones and what they do. If you feel insecure about your own knowledge about these things (they are complicated concepts even for adults) then refer to books or the internet. There is so much information out there that your child has access to, why not access that data with them so they develop the skill of obtaining accurate information.
You get to ask questions too. Ask your child what goes on at school? What do the kids talk about with regard to sex? Are any of his or her friends talking about having sex or engaging in any kind of sexual activity? Remember that this is NOT an interrogation but should sound like casual conversation. As loaded as it may feel to you, it is your job to help your child feel comfortable about this subject. If you need to practice how it sounds when you ask your child these questions then do so with your partner or even with a friend. Try folding the questions into conversation instead of making a big production about the topic.
These conversations are in no way giving permission to your child to become sexually promiscuous. The notion that sexual education at home or in school teaches children to be sexual earlier than they otherwise would have been if they were blissfully ignorant is absurd. You can teach your child about your family values and your personal beliefs while providing them with accurate information about their body and the reproductive system. Without that knowledge you will be advising and guiding them in a vacuum and you may even be contributing to the possibility of lifelong sexual dysfunction and shame. Share with your child your hopes and dreams for them and help them learn to respect their own body and their sexuality.
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when is an appropriate time to talk to kids about sex and their bodys? I want the lines of comminication to be open but I dont want to tell them to much to soon? i also want my kids to be comfotable with their bodies and sexulity and be honest with me and fell like they can ask me questions and get real answers. What age do you start talking and what do you say? do you get more detailed as they get older? My mother told me nothing. Everything I know and learned I learned at school,from friends and personal experience. are there any good books?
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Also, I can remember that Mary Beth and Dan did it (whatever it was) on the bathroom floor when I was in sixth grade. (I must have been 12?) If they don't get the information from you they will get it from their friends (actually, their friends will give it to them anyway.) It doesn't surprise me how much my nine-year-old knows and he now knows everything about reproduction and waiting until you're in a committed relationship because he asked a few questions and I answered honestly. I have supplied books that make it much easier for my boys to ask their mom about sex. It's hard, especially when your kids are the opposite sex but it's part of being a responsible parent.
I remember an expert on television claiming that nowadays parents should tell about sex to their children when they're 10 with every little detail and complete honesty and openess. I think it's positive that children are less naive and know a lot more at an early age. It means that we're functioning again as a society. When children were an active part of the cummunity they were citizens who learned from society and the people working in it. Like any other human being they craved socialization and were enthused about collective projects. Then in the last half of the the previous century, society started alientating children, they were spending more time alone playing with childish toys rather than outsites discovering the world and meeting people, and we had very naive 11 year old acting like 4 year old: insicure, infantile and still entrapped in bland la-la land. Nowadays very young children are feeling the natural instictive need to be productive, involved into projects and socialize with as many people as they can, so they're more interested in playing an instrument, training for sport, taking ballet or modern dance lessons, studying languages or even astronomy, designing robots, backpacking, learning computer programmation and a lot of other things ... rather than alienating themselves with silly toys and I think this is very positive, a sign that they're getting back their humanity and finding meanings in their existence old generations of children had lost. Expecially they're already finding what will be the most important motivation in their whole existence: their passions !