What age to talk about the "bird and the bees" to your kid?

chezmama

The best thing that has ever happened to my relationship with my daughter is when we went, chapter by chapter, through a book called "How to Prepare Your Daughter for Every Woman's Battle" when she was around nine. It is written from a Christian perspective and it is quite detailed about sex and dating, etc., but with a focus on how to protect your heart. I am very passionate that while there is so much information out there on how they can protect themselves from getting STD's and pregnancy, protecting the heart is never addressed. This book also pointed out to parents that studies have shown that when asked at what age people should talk to their kids about sex, on average, they will respond with some age older than their own kids are. Nine or ten is a very good age to have these talks because they have not yet deemed themselves to be "too cool" to listen to what you have to say.

I never got the talk from my mom and I wish I had. I especially would have liked to have heard more about relationships....how men and women think differently and about the "Kleenex girl" concept mentioned earlier. I always thought that men and women are the same so it didn't occur to me as a young and stupid girl that many (most?) boys would "only want one thing". Women don't tend to think that way. I have taught my daughter that she is too important and special to be treated that way. I have taught her to protect her heart till the time is right. Being able to spend that time with her, teaching her about such an important topic and passing on what I believe are the best and safest practices for protecting her heart was uncomfortable at times. But it brought us closer together than I ever could have imagined. I cannot recommend spending time with your kids in this area highly enough.

catshark209

I was a school nurse in an Elementary school and I can assure you that 5th graders are aware of sex and they talk about it on the playground. So if you want your child to hear it from you instead of on the playground, I would say talk prior to 5th grade. I talked to my daughter in 4th grade, just started with what changes she could expect her body to go through and opened the line of communication so she knew she could ask me anything. I told her not to trust what she heard others say, to ask me and I would verify it or refute it, explain it, whatever was appropriate.

Yup. You are right on. My son came home in second grade and had crazy questions. Apparently another child in his class was saying things that were totally inappropriate and he overheard it. I had to have a talk with both the teacher and the principal regarding this. They found things going on at that particular child's home that weren't very good.....
So I had to explain the very basics to my son at that age. Now, he's in the fifth grade and the kids discuss these things on the playground etc. So I had to go into more detail with him and he comes to me with any questions. Its crazy how the kids know more now than when we grew up.

Iamfit4life

After they have earned their doctorates. Right before they want to start dating.

Iamfit4life

After they have earned their doctorates. Right before they want to start dating.

Oishii

My younger brother lost his virginity at 13, with a girl the same age, so when my dad saw fit to do the talk (to be precise 'Sex: don't') it was already way too late.

jennarandhayes

I have a 5 year old daughter and although we haven't discussed sex we do answer all of her questions about anatomy and babies, etc. She knows what a penis and a vagina are and she asks questions about them. She has asked how babies get in to women and we have explained it in terms that she can understand, ie Chickens lay eggs that can grow in to chicks. Mommies have eggs inside their bodies that can grow in to babies. We want to educate her before she NEEDS to know the facts. We feel that being open and honest with her from the get-go will promote an environment where she will feel safe to ask the questions that she wants to know.

When I was 2 years old my aunt sent me the book "Where Did I come From." Although I was too young for that book, my parents kept it on my bookshelf and I could look through it whenever I wanted to. At some point I started asking my parents questions about the book and they answered my questions and read the book to me. It wasn't a bad way to go about it. I always remember knowing about how babies were made, but it was very factual knowledge, which was safe and never felt shameful or wrong. I think when people wait to long to talk to their children it becomes uncomfortable for everyone involved. My "Where Did I Come From" book is now on my daughter's bookshelf. She has yet to ask us to read it, but when she does I will be happy to.

kellylou1367

My parents never explained any of it to me, I think it was due to embarrassment for them and my Mam bought me a book called Facts of Life when I was about 9 or 10 years old and she told me to read it, most of the stuff in it I had an idea of anyway.

LilMissFoodie

This is such a difficult thing to answer but I agree, the earlier the better.

On a deeply personal note (made less personal by the fact that none of you know me), I was sexually abused as a child - completely consentually technically (it was all a game to me but an 8 year old performing sexual acts on someone who knows what they are is abuse) but had I understood what was happening perhaps it wouldn't have happened at all and I wouldn't have felt so much guilt in the years that followed my sex education...

Iamfit4life

IN all honesty(disregard my joke post earlier) probably pretty young. I'd prefer they learn anything they know about sex from me, rather than some brats in a playground. Or some teacher. I'd just rather they know stuff from their parents. I think it's every bit our job to educate them.


My parents

Their sex ed consisted of this

Mom: do you know what happens when you get older
Me: yes, you get hairy parts
Mom: well that too.... here's a book

that was it lol

asyouseefit

As soon as they have questions about it.

Huskeryogi

My son is 4 & knows that a baby grows in a mummies belly & that a mummy & a daddy make a baby together from their love. (easiest way to answer the question honestly without getting too graphic.) He also knows that a baby comes out of a mummies mooey ( kid speak in our house for a vagina, haha)

We have a fairly open policy on any subject as well as no embarrassment about being naked & if he asked a specific question try to answer as honestly as possible for his understanding so I hope as he gets older he will just know about this stuff through open discussion. The idea of a "talk" sounds awful to me, very impersonal. I just knew about this stuff growing up in a mainly female family so I hope my son does too.

I don't' believe it should be up to schools to educate kids about sex, contraception & STD.

I agree with this. I don't think it's one talk - I think you start talking about sex early (basics) and expand as they get older. I don't remember those conversations being awkward because my parents weren't weird about telling me and they didn't wait until I was a preteen who felt awkward about everything.

meerkat70

I tend to answer questions as they emerge. And we've always been open about bodies, the way they work, we use proper names for things, etc. So I guess my little girl's understanding of sex and sexuality has gradually unfolded in a way that I hope is reasonably organic.

I think once they're on the edge of puberty, they certainly need to know how everything works - and remember puberty is starting younger and younger. But I think if you leave it all till then, it could end up being a bit of a shock to the system.

My own parents told me pretty much nothing. I learned everything I know about sex from stowed away mills and boon books. I was really *quite old* before I worked out quite what M&B meant when they were talking about 'that most intimate of kisses'.... I would like my own child to be a bit better prepared!

JNick77

I'd say by or at the start of middle school. We started talking with our kids about sex and safe sex very very early.

The real question that might raise a stink... Do you buy your kids condoms to keep on hand or not? It's a very hard decision to be honest but we bought them for the boys anyways.

priestessquinley

My mom asked me if I knew where babies came from when I was seven, I told her I couldn't tell her because it was a bad word, however, I actually knew the act of sex concieved children. We had cousins that lived with us, one was older and when they got sex education in school they spread the information. I just didn't know what to call the act of having sex because I had only ever heard the f-word whispered by others as the source for babies.
I don't think that sex education covers enough in school, it tells you the whys of it, and the science behind it, but not the how of it or the drive behind it. I was WAY unprepared for hormones and their effect on the body and the body's effect on the mind's thinking and reasoning centers.
Here is how I approached it with my last two children... One day I was suffering from mood swings and aggression brought about by the onset of my monthly period menstral cycles, they were small so I explaned to them that mommies get angry and upset when they have "The belly bo-bo" (they were really little) they wanted to know why ladies were upset when they had the belly bo-bo, and I told them that your body is silly and thinks that when it makes a baby that is a duplicate of themselves, and a way to continue, (a sort of immortality, as it were) and that when you reach puberty your body thinks that now it must make itself as many new bodies as it can. When a lady has the belly bo-bo, the body knows it failed at the task it set itself, and it rages in a physical way, releasing hormones and aggression. When you don't know that your body is causing you to feel emotions by way of hormones, you look for the reasons for your angers and rages, and when you look for reasons you will find them, usually in the ones closest to you, your family.
From that discussion we built on it over the years as they grew and asked more questions. We have touched on sex drive, and the importance of self control over your body BEFORE you have to deal with the stresses that hormones are going to put on your system and logic processes, Girls MOST especially need to be prepared for the emotions and auto-response mechanisms in our biological make-up so they can learn to deal with the fact that they were made to WANT to please men and suffer emotionally if they have to refuse.
I have talked with them about STDs as well, and kissing, I told my little ones that kissing is how your body can tell if someone is genetically desirable to mate with, sometimes you kiss someone, and it is like kissing a sibling, and sometimes you kiss someone and your every thought catches fire. Therefore you don't kiss someone on the mouth unless you are considering mating with them. (My Aunt told me when I was 15 not to let a boy kiss me because a kiss was "Upper persuasion for lower invasion" ~laughing~ that was her version of "The Talk"
I told them when they were little that girls had a special place in their bodies for carrying children until they are ready to be born and that the baies grow in a woman's body from her eggs that she is born with, but that a man seed has to mix with the egg to start it forming into a baby. It was years before it occured to one of them to ask me how the man seed got into the woman's body. NOVA has a wonderful DVD called "The miracle of life" That actually shows (tastefully) the moment of ejaculation and conception, and follows this child from a single cell to birth.
I think that schools pretty much have the medical side of sex education, but I think as parents we need to try to find a way to help our children deal with the emotional issues that they are going to deal with, and help them understand early that they will be dealing with a body that wants to do things that are not always appropriate. AND that they are NOT their bodies, they inhabit their bodies, and while they cannot let their bodies do everthing it wants to do, they do not have to be ashamed that the urge was there in the first place.

JNick77

Some of those videos are good but be careful because if I recall right The Miracle of Life almost makes it sound like the odds of getting pregnant are not great which could lead to the wrong perception by a teen. Think of the whole "I'm invincible" "that's not going to happen to me" mentality of a teenager when talking to them about stuff.

mamax5

I gave my daughter a talk when she was 8....she knew what a period was at 7 tho. She was stealing my tampons and playing with them and I wasn't going to lie to her about what those things are for. She knows most everything. She knows what sex is. I wanted to tell her these things before someone else told her. We will talk about boys and dating next year. She will be 9.

amfmmama

I was a school nurse in an Elementary school and I can assure you that 5th graders are aware of sex and they talk about it on the playground. So if you want your child to hear it from you instead of on the playground, I would say talk prior to 5th grade. I talked to my daughter in 4th grade, just started with what changes she could expect her body to go through and opened the line of communication so she knew she could ask me anything. I told her not to trust what she heard others say, to ask me and I would verify it or refute it, explain it, whatever was appropriate.

I teach high school and I make 4 hours of overtime every week tutoring girls students on maternity leave. These girls are only 15 years old. 14 when they got pregnant, and if you think that it was the first time, you are being naive. You do the math...talk early!

circusmom

My oldest was almost 5 when he asked me, "Mom, where do baby elephants come from?" I'm thinking, elephants??
So I told him "they come from Mommy elephants."
"Well how do they get in the Mommy elephant?"
"The Mommy and Daddy elephant have sex, the mommy gets pregnant with the baby elephant."
"Oh, okay. Hhhhmmmm"

I've always just thought that when they are ready to ask the question, they are ready to hear an answer. With that being said, it needs to be an answer that is appropriate for their age.

shorty458

I don't have kids, and my parents never had that discussion with me. However, I remember we did have sex ed talk in middle school. I was in 6th or 7th grade. So, if educators feel like this is a good age, I would suggest around then!

janiebeth

I don't have kids, and my parents never had that discussion with me. However, I remember we did have sex ed talk in middle school. I was in 6th or 7th grade. So, if educators feel like this is a good age, I would suggest around then!

^^This - our school discusses starting in 6th grade. Apparently the 7th grade video is "gross", so my suggestion is make sure you hit the main points well before the school does it for you.