Having the "talk" with your child

Wow. My school started sex-ed in the fourth grade. I was 9. Some girls start their periods that early. I may be the odd-duck on this one, but I think age 9/10ish is a very appropriate age to explain the very basics of what the act is, what it leads to (pregnancy), why it's important to wait until a person is (insert your moral narrative here), and especially why it's important to have respect for their bodies/take care of them and not feel bad about telling someone that it isn't ok to touch them in ways that make them uncomfortable. 4th grade girls are typically starting to develop immature/youthful crushes on boys and older boys will sometimes try to take advantage of that. I think that by making sure young girls understand their bodies, we empower them. Having said all that I will now climb down off of my soap box and add that my daughter is only 3, so my theories on what to do have NOT been tested. lol

Wow. My school started sex-ed in the fourth grade. I was 9. Some girls start their periods that early. I may be the odd-duck on this one, but I think age 9/10ish is a very appropriate age to explain the very basics of what the act is, what it leads to (pregnancy), why it's important to wait until a person is (insert your moral narrative here), and especially why it's important to have respect for their bodies/take care of them and not feel bad about telling someone that it isn't ok to touch them in ways that make them uncomfortable. 4th grade girls are typically starting to develop immature/youthful crushes on boys and older boys will sometimes try to take advantage of that. I think that by making sure young girls understand their bodies, we empower them. Having said all that I will now climb down off of my soap box and add that my daughter is only 3, so my theories on what to do have NOT been tested. lol

This is very true. My friend has just completed a Masters in sexual health and she says all the research suggest that the earlier you start discussing this stuff (with age appropriate language etc) the better. In fact she says that children raised in homes with open discussion are less susceptible to abuse because a) they are aware that it is wrong and b) less embarrassed to tell someone which effectively removes two weapons from paedophiles. We have a booklet provided by the West Australian department of health that says the same thing

Agree with Knittnponder about letting the child lead the conversation. I'll share a funny story.

My son, who was about 9 years old at the time, asked me what gay was. I answered him openly & honestly and was very proud of myself for not freaking out. I thought I handled it beautifully. Then I asked him why he asked. He replied "because I'm learning the Flinstone's theme song on piano, and they say let's have a gay old time and I didn't know what that meant."

Lesson learned - always ask "why do you ask" first.

My mum told me that when I was 6 years old I asked "Mummy, what's rape?"
She freaked out internally, then she asked me why I wanted to know, and it turned out that at school we had been learning about fish.

I'm a biology teacher... (albeit currently working in different jobs).... I've taught this subject to whole classes of giggling year 7 students. (that's the age they teach this in science in the UK) Talking to kids individually is a lot easier than a whole bunch of them, especially when they're teens and pre-teens. So you have that advantage as a parent....

An important point as a parent..... rather than having "THE TALK" with your child, try to just be honest and open with their questions, just as you would be with any other subject. If they ask "why do you go to work?" you'd tell them that you have to go to work to earn money to buy stuff... you're not going to sit them down and give them a whole lesson in economics and work ethics.... you give them an age appropriate answer, then answer any more questions that come from that.... it should be the same with sex, relationships and all related topics. So they ask "what is sex?" you can just tell them what it is... it's a bit harder to explain, hence books etc with age appropriate diagrams and explanations but just try to treat it like any other question.... too much information in one go will often send kids into information overload... give them a straight forward answer, then answer whatever questions they have.

(Actually the biggest difficulty in teaching this topic to year 7s is making them realise that they're never going to get an exam question like this:

Fill in the blanks: The man puts his _________ into the woman's __________.

They're going to get exam questions about fertilisation in plants, or labelling the male and female reproductive system (not just the most obvious organ), the life cycle of frogs, about pregnancy, placentas and stuff like that, because reproduction is a much much wider topic than sex...) but that's for science teachers to worry about.... as a parent your kids aren't going to be doing any tests in the subject (well I guess they will at school at some point).... so just focus on giving honest answers to your kid's questions and get an age appropriate book to help you out if necessary.

Honesty and openness is vitally important if you want your kids to come to you for advice about stuff like this when they're older, and that can make a big difference in terms of them understanding the importance of safe sex, not being pressured into it before they're ready, etc.