The birds and the bees?
I think we should tell them when they ask and only answer each question as it comes. I found out at 5 cause a teacher was pregnant and I wanted to know all about it and kept bugging my parents for answers. So they told me strait up with all the proper names(no slang terms).
He thinks we should avoid the whole thing until there at least 10yrs old cause its not appropriate to talk about and there to young to understand.
My oldest (8) kind of knows cause I was pregnant when she was 5 I just left out the whole intercourse bit when explaining how the baby got there. you know mommy and daddy love each other very much ..egg meets sperm and theres a baby.... she was more interested in what it looked like in my tummy as it grew... this satisfied her curiosity but ticked my hubby off.
The questions have come up again not just by my daughter but also my 6 y rold son. Im assuming they talk about it to each other and Im lost on what to do. (we have a pregnant friend so Im guessing this is why they are thinkng about it) I dont want them getting the wrong information. Any advise?
My daughter is almost 5 and haven't had any questions yet. She is beginning to shows signs of modesty (going potty in private, telling people not to look when she is changing) but I don't think she is 'actually' modest, she is just being private. Potty time is private time at school so she applies it at home too. Either way, I don't think anything at that point will make total sense but just try your best. You know your child's maturity level and what they will and will not understand. Good luck!
You know your child's maturity level and what they will and will not understand.
I completely agree with that.
I will not lie to my child, so I'm not going to tell her that the stork brought her or anything of that sort, no matter how young she is.
My 4 year old knows that babies grow inside mommies. She knows that they start as tiny things, smaller than a pea, and grow. She knows that they emerge via the vagina, or that if there is a reason the doctor may perform surgery on a mommy to get the baby out. She also knows about adoption and that not all babies came out of the mommy that is raising them.
She knows all this because she has asked questions - she has adopted cousins and cousins born via c-section and she was curious about my pregnancy with her sister. She has not asked questions about sex. I think/hope we are a long way from that. If it comes up, I will not lie to her, but I may tell her that's something she doesn't need to worry about at 4 and that we will discuss it when she is a little older. I don't know that I can assign a "proper age". It will all depend on her maturity level.
I remember asking my mom about this when I was fiveor six. She told me straight up (no silly nicknames etc.). I have always respected her for that. It's part of life and I don't see any reason to hide this information when a child asks. I remember being a little freaked out about the whole intercourse thing, but my mom was very honest and I understood. I don't think that it came up again until I was 10-12. I was a very well adjusted child and I wouldn't have wanted her to handle it any other way. I have friends who are adults and they never received any of this information from their own parents. That leaves a whole lot of room for misinformation. I'm going to tell my children when they ask. I just don't understand what all the embarrassment is all about.
If you decide to be honest with them, I would suggest having another conversation to compliment this one. I must have told a friend about my new knowledge and my mom recieved a phone call that night from a very angry mother : /. Best of luck!
well we talk about it quiet a bit in my house. My step kids are at the age where sex is well Gross and its generally funny to talk about ones own anatomy. So I have an anatomy book that we occasionally pull out. I try to talk in general terms and keep them scientific.
Although now that it seems the cool thing to is get knocked up when you are teen I feel a strong urge to discuss birth control with my Step daughter even though she is only 12. She happens to live in an area where abstinence is considered the only birth control childern need to know about. (eye roll)
I recently had to explain when I take my temperature when I wake up in the mornings. I tried very very hard to keep charting to avoid conception simple but some how it became a 30 minute conversation on the inner workings of the female body. LOL.
Denise
I haven't yet, but will ONLY answer specifically what is asked. My best friends 10 year old daughter still thinks I went to the hospital two years ago and the doc handed me the baby. She never asked how it came out. My niece who is the same age asked when she was 6 (when I had my first) and my sis in law told her how they come out. She was actually relieved that they come out of somewhere, because the thought of a doc sliciing open her belly was horrendous to her! Also, she asked what sex was one day, and my sis in law paused and asked her what she meant. It was on a paper or form for school, and it was asking male/female! Be sure you only answer what they are really asking. They will need to know eventually, but there is no reason to push it earlier than than they are interested!
Original Post by loveschocolate:
She was actually relieved that they come out of somewhere, because the thought of a doc sliciing open her belly was horrendous to her!
Hey, it happens!
My 4 year old wanted to see a c-section scar when we talked about it. I don't have one so I had to tell her to ask her grandma if she could see hers. lol I don't know if she ever did.
Yeah, I guess I should have been more clear. She did explain that the belly slicing thing *could* happen, but her aunt wasn't having that done! My niece then decided a few years ago that she wasn't having children because of the *possible* stomach pain, and has decided to put her savings towards adoption! I am pretty certain she has since decided against that and has spent her savings elsewhere, but man did the csect thing freak her out!
just tell them not to let any boys put their winkies in her hoo-ha!!!
To be honest, I have never had the discussion. My oldest was 14 months old when my second was born and 5 when my third was born. Over the years with each pregnancy they kind of sort of figured it out themselves. I answered all questions as appropriately as I could for their age, but I never sat down and had a conversation about it.
When my oldest two were 11 and 9, I sent them to the OWL's program at our local UU church. OWL stands for Our Whole Lives. They did all the hard work for me. There are several different courses for different age groups with that program. For the 9 to 11 year olds they discussed body changes, for the girls they had an indepth discussion on menstrual cycles and the reason for having them. To be honest, I even learned something from that course. I had no idea that you could use sea sponges as Tampons and that it was a more natural and healthier option from the regular tampons. They did discuss sex. They were frank and honest about it, but stopped short of discussing contraception options. The 13 to 16 age group course discusses contraception methods and If I remember correctly even gives proper instruction on how to put on a condum. We stopped attending church there shortly after the girls completed the 9 to 11 year old course. But, they also have one for I believe 5 to 8 year olds.
It made it a lot easier on me, they learned from caring people who were not embarassed to discuss their questions openly and honestly. I didn't have to do it. It was perfect. LOL
I'm seventeen and never got the "talk" from my parents. Going by what they've told me, babies come from when a man and a woman share a bed. Hah.
Teach them the way you teach them about everything else they ask you. You answer their questions in a way they will understand. If you listen to them, you will know what they are ready to hear. It is better for them to sort of know all along about what will happen to their bodies and how they might feel in different situations. You don't need to tell them everything at once. You teach them little by little, what they are ready to learn. If you don't want your children experimenting (playing doctor), or being taken advantage of by an older child (babysitter, adult), you need to let them know something.
i believe you should tell them as soon as they ask, in age appropriate terms. my son asked when he was 4, because i was pregnant at the time, where babies come from. at that point i just told him from my tummy. that satisfied him. when he was about six he wanted to know how they got there. it told him about sperm and egg, but not about the intercourse part. that satisfied him. at about 7 he wanted more info then we got to the intercourse part, this time with a little more info based on our family values, that sex is to be had in a loving, married relationship. that satisfied him.
in this day it is dangerous to think that our kids remain ignorant until we decide to talk to them. my girls learned from an early age that girls have vaginas and boys have penises. if we dont tell them, they will hear it from their friends ( just like all generations before us), but also much worse misinformation or inappropriate info from the media! we have to get there before the outsiders do.
I have an 18 year old. And I always talked to him about everything. I swear, to this day, we have an open communication line because I never refused to answer a question of his. When he asked, no matter what age, and no matter what it was about, I told him the truth.
The way I figured it, they ARE going to find out somehow, and they'll ask you, the parent, questions first - that is until they realize you're not telling them the truth - then they will stop asking and just go elsewhere for the answers. And if they are old enough to ask the question, something obviously prompted the curiosity. You can't very well say, well, wait a couple of years and I'll tell you the answer to your question - that will only make them more curious. They WILL find out the answer from somewhere. You have one window of opportunity and that's when they ask the question. It's about when they're ready, not when you're ready. If you wait until you're ready it will never come because these conversations are never easy or comfortable.
My son just graduated, and in his grad speech he mentioned that he could talk to me about anything - this was not by accident on my part. I cultivated that aspect of our relationship from the time he was born. No matter what he wanted to talk about I'd tell him the truth.
Funny story here, I do remember one time.......he was in pee-wee football and the coach was a bad ass and kept telling the kids to quit "jacking off". My son came home and asked what that meant. I told him it meant messing around. He said, "No, what does jacking off really mean". I got all red in the face and said he would have to ask his dad (his dad and I have been divorced since he was one), he walked away, stopped in the hall, came back to where I was sitting and said, "You know, that's the first time you've not answered a question I had about something". I sighed and said, "Sit down". That was probably the hardest convesation I've ever had with him about sexual things. At the end, all he said was, "Eww". I laughed, because I knew it would not be too many more years and he wouldn't be thinking it was "ewww", lol!
But seriously, TALK TO YOUR KIDS!!!!! You will be glad you did later in life when they still come to you for advice or a second opinion. My parents never talked to us about anything. In fact, when I first got my period I had no idea what it was and FREAKED out. To this day I don't talk to my parents about much of anything.
lol! i like your story cavaliers! it reminds me of some of the talks i've had with my son, who always seems to ask questions after school during homework before his dad gets home, so i'm the only one to answer these questions! i bite my lip, count to 10 to get over my embarrasment, and dive in as cool as possible. one good thing about being a stay home mom, is i get the opporunity to casually "eavedrop" on some of his conversations with his friends when they hang out on the porch. he has a few friends who are a couple years older than he is (about 12....he's 9). i often wonder what the older kids say to him.....sometimes i just come out and ask if they discuss certain things. the best thing tho is that he feels comfortable enough to come to me and talk about stuff. i'm glad for that, and i hope he still feels that way once he reaches his teens.
Thanks Demila, that made me smile! 
I dunno, I never got "the talk"... but I think parents SHOULD give their kids "the talk," mine just didn't.
I really think it depends on the relationship. Like, my parents & I have never had that open of a relationship where I would have had ANY desire to hear them talk about it or talk about it myself.
But then again, I've always been an intelligent kid & I wanted to learn everything. I've been using the internet since I was like 7, & I love to read, so I've been able to easily get all the info I need. There was never a need for me to ask. Like, when I was about to get my period, my mom just gave me one of those books by American Girl that was like "your body & you" or some ridiculousness that talked about periods/body odor/developing/shaving/etc & that was the end of that. For us, that's the best way to do it.
Again, you know what your kids can handle & when. I think it's AWESOME that I have friends that can talk to their parents about stuff like that, but it just wasn't for me.
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