I'm hoping to mine the wisdom of those who have older (early teenage +) children, on how you introduced the topic of sex education to them and what the reception to it was.

In particular, I'm wondering how others may have dealt with their child's shyness or resistance to talking about such matters. My son is 11 and he knows some basics from some very general discussion we had years ago, but anytime I've broached the subject now he gets extremely self-conscious and professes no curiosity (which of course tells me that he must be!) and wants to avoid talking about it. He and I are very close, but he's quite private and isn't forthcoming about his feelings in general, let alone about sex.

I can't 'force' information into him, and I'm unsure what the best tack to take would be. Any experiences you can relate or suggestions?

Psst! Parenting section might be the place to put this. Presumably that's where all the, er, parents hang out.

Might you have a one-versation with your son, where you tell him to shut up and listen, so he can blush all he wants, but isn't required to respond or express an opinion or anything? (Or hire him a hooker for the night. )

(thanks! Mods - please move as appropriate, I was apparently blind!)

We've been talking to our kids about sex since they were about 4 or 5 years old and given them age-appropriate books to support the information. We started with the basics of anatomy and rudimentary baby making, and as they get older, we've reinforced & expanded on the earlier stuff plus introduced concepts like homosexuality, contraception, unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Our kids are quite OK with talking about sex without embarrassment and even joke about us having sex - "we know what you were just doing...". They're not overly curious and aren't likely to go and find out about sex by getting drunk and having unprotected sex in the back seat of a car as teenagers.

Durro wrote:We've been talking to our kids about sex since they were about 4 or 5 years old and given them age-appropriate books to support the information. We started with the basics of anatomy and rudimentary baby making, and as they get older, we've reinforced & expanded on the earlier stuff plus introduced concepts like homosexuality, contraception, unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Our kids are quite OK with talking about sex without embarrassment and even joke about us having sex - "we know what you were just doing...". They're not overly curious and aren't likely to go and find out about sex by getting drunk and having unprotected sex in the back seat of a car as teenagers.

That's good of you that you started explaining to them at an early age.


Bella, to tell you the truth - I recall myself being the same way when I was that age. I think it was because I had never discussed that with my parents, and when my mum started talking to me about it - I just wasn't willing to share my thoughts on the situation, since it was an entirely new thing for us to talk about.

At the age of 11, I would imagine that your son probably has a very good idea of the basics. Where I grew up, my school - Health Education - was very good at covering all those topics... including STD's, contraception, etc etc...

Plus, if he has a group of friends that he's close with - chances are, they've probably talked about this... in a joking manner most likely, but nonetheless, have talked about it in a round about way.

Sorry that may not help in what you are looking for - but - I can understand why your son might feel uncomfortable in talking about that with you, his mother.

J_Mills, doesn't have a bad idea, in saying that you just tell him to listen to you while you speak about the topic. Tell your son he doesn't even have to respond or take part in the conversation - but, at least you can get some important things out in the open. Just do it in the car one day - and if he feels uncomfortable - well, than he can run out of the car once you've stopped driving and do his thing. But at least, he will still have heard your words.

I have two older girls as well as the 3 year old, one is 22 the other 24. I never had the birds and the bees talk with them because it wasn't required, it started with the "Where do babies come from?" questions when they were really little and as they get older I just expanded more on the information I gave to them

I can see your difficulties with your son tho, my middle daughter is quite a private girl too, she was fine when she was little but changed as a teen and it became difficult to talk to her about sex, I'd go with the "oneversation", there is information you have to get over to the wee darlings so just go for it, don't allow them to run till your finished but then let them go and die of mortification in peace. When I knew my daughter was in a relationship I had to talk to her about contraception, she hated it but I wasn't going to leave her alone till I knew she was protecting herself, so she told me what I needed to know, mostly to end her embarrassment but hey ho

I've always thought it was funny how I'd brought my girls up to be so open and free to talk yet the middle daughter still had problems with this. It's the nature/nurture thing I suppose

My oldest is just seven year old, but he has some idea of the basics, and has looked a lot in Lennart Nilsson's A Child Is Born. For my own part, I had sex ed in school, and read the sex Q&A's in a pre-teen/early teen magazine and in the evening paper, as well as leafing through porn mags together with my peers. I'm sure my mother brought up the subject, but I have no memory of it. I guess it is easier in a country where sex ed and sex in general aren't seen as something dirty and strange that is best not talked about. The result is evident in the small number of teen pregnancies. Unfortunately, too much reliance and easy access to the pill and the "morning after" pills have lead to an increase in STDs, so instruction in the advantages and use of condoms are needed for all teens.

When Claire was in grade 2 (last year) they were talking as a class about families and one kid piped up that he didn't have a Daddy. Claire said that this was impossible, as there has to be a Daddy to put the sperm inside the vagina to make a baby....

The teacher agreed that Claire was anatomically correct, but that the other child meant that his parents were divorced.



The teacher did comment to us later on what a good understanding Claire had about sex/reproduction at that age.

My eldest daughter's biological father was never in her life and when I married she called my first husband Daddy, we met when she was a tiny baby. I never wanted to have to sit her down at 6 or 7 or even older and have to tell her that her Daddy wasn't in fact her father so we decided to tell her about biological fathers when she was about 2, worked a treat, she never had that feeling of loss that alot of children must feel, she just always knew

The divorce story above made me think of that

Bella, talking about sex. OMG. Too much. Cold shower time

There are a couple of outstanding books that my parents (and many of my uncles/aunts) used with us when we were young - Where Did I Come From, aimed at 5-10 year-olds, and What's Happening To Me, targetted at pre-teens. Both were appropriately descriptive, including slightly comical line drawings, and did a great job of explaining things. After we read them, we discussed matters with my parents. I think my only complaint about the book was that it presented some "alternate theories" (i.e. the Stork Model of Child Delivery), but that I was too young to appreciate the silliness of it all - I knew the false ideas were false, but had never been exposed to someone advocating them. Could be helpful for a kid who has already been given some bad info in school or something, though.

"Offical" sex-ed was quite poor for me - I remember in 5th Grade that all the girls were taken to the School Nurse's office for a sex-ed talk - closed door, with special covering for the window. Even then, all the boys knew the topic was sex ed - but we were not given similar education at school. It wasn't until some animal-related biology classes in 6-8th grades, followed by human anatomy and human reproductive process sections in 9th grade Biology, that boys were finally formally educated in the matter.

Fortunately, my parents had quite an effective job by then, with the aid of the books I mentioned. I plan on using them with my granddaughter - actually, starting fairly soon, because she is displaying somewhat of a mini-obsession with babies and giving birth.

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-Come-Pe ... nskepti-20

EDIT - link added

Yes ! They're two of the books we have Weaver !

i was never given any talk, ive never discussed anything with my parents

i turned out fine

I don't have children and don't intend to, but my parents [er, by parents, I mean mostly just my mom] were pretty good about the "talkS" with us. My mom started early with anatomical discussions--I don't know exactly when it happened, but I don't ever recall using silly little names for body parts, and I remember understanding very early on that boys had penises and that was different from my vagina, etc. When I was probably 7 or so my mom started talking about sex in terms of reproduction and baby-making. A year or two later, she introduced emotions and what sex might mean to some people.
She also stressed the healthiness of exploring your body and understanding the changes and never being ashamed of it, which I find extremely important in retrospect.

Joe09 wrote:i was never given any talk, ive never discussed anything with my parents

i turned out fine

...a proud father of four kids!

Varangian wrote:

Joe09 wrote:i was never given any talk, ive never discussed anything with my parents

i turned out fine

...a proud father of four kids!

im never having children

Varangian wrote:My oldest is just seven year old, but he has some idea of the basics, and has looked a lot in Lennart Nilsson's A Child Is Born. For my own part, I had sex ed in school, and read the sex Q&A's in a pre-teen/early teen magazine and in the evening paper, as well as leafing through porn mags together with my peers. I'm sure my mother brought up the subject, but I have no memory of it. I guess it is easier in a country where sex ed and sex in general aren't seen as something dirty and strange that is best not talked about. The result is evident in the small number of teen pregnancies. Unfortunately, too much reliance and easy access to the pill and the "morning after" pills have lead to an increase in STDs, so instruction in the advantages and use of condoms are needed for all teens.

Varangian! Thankyou! My parents had an old copy of A Child Is Born which my sister and I thumbed through regularly from a very early age - it had a double page spread in black & white of a hairy, gloopy vagina with babys head crowning which we found simultaneously alien, gross and fascinating! And all those magical, other-worldly foetuses, like pink tadpoles with little webbed hands. It was lost a long time ago and I couldn't remember the name of the book or photograper - now I can track one down and scare the bejesus out of my girls

We've two teenage boys.

We were just completely explicit about it right from an early age - penises and vaginas and all that. Didn't try to obscure anything about it.

(Had I had my wits about me I could have just popped up a pron site
"Daddy why are they squirting it all over the place ?")

When we got around to talking about it, it was too late. By that I mean the response was, "It's OK dad, we've been doing that in school." By 'doing that in school', he didn't mean they'd actually been doing 'it'* in school, rather that it was a subject they had already covered in Sex Ed lessons. "Oh, by the way dad, don't bother telling <name of next Bill sprogling>, it'll be much better coming from the teacher than you." That sort of put me in my place.


* At least I hope not. They're certainly not proactively admitting it even if they had been ...

A bit off-topic, but something which made laugh:

My girlfriend is a school teacher (6-7 year olds) and is pregnant with our second child. Last week, during the first week of school, she showed a couple of ultrasound photos to her class.

Kid 1: "Miss, it's so dark inside your tummy!"
Kid 2: "Yeah, but when you open your mouth, light can get in!"
Miss:: "Well okay, but I'm not going to stand like this (looks at ceiling and opens mouth wide) all day now, am I?"

I just love the reasoning of kids.