Let’s untangling talking to kids about sex. When do you start, what do you say? How do you answer the questions that kids ask?
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This post was inspired by my post on Talking to Kids About Sex
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Items Mentioned
- Usborne Flip Flap Body Book
- Care and Keeping of You American Girl Book
- My cousin’s podcast on porn addiction
- Your child was given to you for a reason
Other things you might be interested in:
Producer: Drew Erickson
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Transcript:
Hilary Erickson 0:00
Welcome back to The pulling curls podcast today on episode 37. We are talking about something my thought was a swear word. I remember I was walking to school with my friend Laurie and her brother saw this word on the sidewalks and they said that’s a swear word. You shouldn’t say that. And ever since then I thought that was so funny. Anyway, let’s untangle it. Welcome to the pulling curls podcast where we untangle everything from pregnancy parenting home routines, even some family travel because heavens knows our lives are tangled. I’m your host, Hilary Erickson.
Okay, guys, before we jump in the full topic, let me remind you to just switch on over to your favorite podcast carrier and leave me a review. (leave me a review…) It’s super helpful. Thank you. Okay, so today we’re talking about the birds and the bees. I’m trying to keep this podcast clean because I don’t want to be marked as explicit. But this is an explicit content. It’s like the birds and the bees so hopefully little ears that you don’t want to hear this content. Because I do agree that young young children don’t need to hear this content this might not be the episode to listen to while they’re hanging out with you. This episode of The pulling curls podcast is sponsored by family routines how to automate your housewife life. ever wish life was more like you pictured it would be before you had kids. Being able to spend less time with the mundane tasks and more time teaching kids the fun and valuable life skills you know they need family routines teaches families to simplify daily tasks into routines that help them feel more peace and joy. Save 15% with a coupon code untangled you can find it at pulling curls.com and the menu under courses or in this episode show notes.
Alright, sex we’re talking about I think one of the most important things to acknowledge if you’re nervous about it, and some parents are and bullied to you. If you’re the parent that’s like, I don’t have a problem talking about that. I don’t feel awkward about it at all strong work. You might not need this episode either. But I knew it was gonna be awkward for me to talk about or my kid. It was gonna be less awkward than when my mom talked to me about it, but I needed to acknowledge that yes, this is gonna be a little bit awkward and that’s okay just to like sit in the awkwardness and be like, Okay, this is gonna be awkward, but we’ve got to do it. Let’s move on. Right so I think it’s important to acknowledge Yes, this is gonna be awkward. You also need to start early probably earlier than you think you do. For us. We start Well, we talk birds and the bees like biologically before this age, but at eight we have the full talk where exactly how it happens. Just like an Ikea diagram. we dive into the whole thing before age eight, we’ve used a book called The flip flap body book from Osborn.
I’m sure there are lots of other books out there, but that’s the one that we found and I just really liked it. It talked about the sperm and the egg and how the dad provides the sperm and the mom provides the egg, nothing graphic, but my kids always knew that it took a mom and a dad to make a baby. And because I deliver younger age people at my work, I have gotten the question from preschoolers. Well, how did she get pregnant? Was she married at age 12? No And I say I’ve told him all along that you can have a baby without being married. But it’s not a good choice. And that girl is going to have a really hard time. And that’s usually how we talk about it when they’re younger. Also, while we’re talking about books, I love the American Girl series, same people that make the dolls make this book series for girls, I wish there was an American boy series, although I don’t know that they would read it. But it’s a lot about like personal hygiene and just like starting your period, and it just makes it real Matter of fact, just a very informational novel, big fan of it, you know, doesn’t go into values or anything like that. It just talks about what’s going to go on. So those are two books that I recommend, I don’t recommend the American Girl book until you had the talk with your daughter.
But I had the talk and then gave her the book and she loved the book. It was a great way for her to look at questions and just kind of look at things on her own time. So back to before age eight kids are gonna have questions and that is totally normal. And for me, I just answered the question they asked. So if a kid said Where does the sperm come from? I’ll say the dad, like it says on the flip flop body book, if they kind of are like, we’re in the dad, then I might continue, but my kids never were like, they were just like, oh, the dad and they moved on, you know? or they’d say, where especially when I was pregnant. Where does the baby come out of and I would just say, you push, the mom pushes really hard and the baby comes out between her legs. And then we moved on. I don’t think you have to like, I think a lot of people feel like watch your kid ask a question like, Where do babies come from? You have to give them the firehose of every single ounce of sexual knowledge that you have at that time. That is not true. Answer the question they have, Where do babies come from mommy’s girl babies in their tummy. And they grow there for nine months. And then they have the baby. You know, that answers the question. It doesn’t perpetrate like any sort of weird lie or anything, but it just answers the question that they have. Now if kids are asking more serious questions, then I would just answer the question that they have and move on. Just like your biology teacher would answer the question or IKEA like if you were like, Where is that screw it would say it is in bag number two. You know, you’re just answering questions at this point. Okay, so when do you want to have the talk, we had it soon after my daughter’s eighth birthday, and we’ve done it around age eight with my other kids.
One of the benefits is that we started with my oldest son when he was eight. And I was also pregnant at the time. So if you are pregnant, that is a great time to bring it up because they have a lot of questions about how the baby got in her tummy and all those kind of things. So it’s a great way to start biologically how to how do things happen? Now the most important thing is to just treat this like a biology lesson, I think we tend to get our values and our feelings so entangled in this when in reality, it’s just a biology lesson. And in the post, I go through an exact conversation if you are so uncomfortable giving this conversation that you want to read it to your kid, whereas I’ve heard other people do that is 100% fine. I’m not gonna read it on this episode, because I feel like it might be a little too explicit. And we’ve already been in to how I want to be rated clean, but you’re just talking about what exactly happens and then your ending, you know, and that talk should be fairly short. You can encourage questions. You know, kids might ask why on earth you would do something like that? Or if you’ve ever done something like that, and yeah, so you’re just again get to answer the questions. Now once we’ve had that talk, we have advanced it every year.
So the first talk is exactly exactly how sex happens. The second talk, you know, expands out a little bit more about diseases and choices that people might make because my daughter is now headed to 11 she will be 11 by the time this comes up, I think and I have delivered an 11 year old and so it’s really important to start talking about all of those different things. Now, she hopefully is not sexually active or considering it and hopefully no 11 year old is considering being sexually active honestly. But she might have friends who are making choices or having questions and I would hope that she could answer them honestly and truthfully, and encourage her friends to make good choices.
So other things that we start to talk about beyond that when my kids are little we talk a lot about how nobody besides the doctor when mommy or daddy are there or mommy or daddy. If we’re looking at Something should be touching you wear your bathing suit covers, right. And I think that’s a good way to term just those areas. So that’s important for kids to know about boundaries that people should have and also boundaries that they should have with other people. My children should not be touching other people where their bathing suit covers either. We of course, do talk about abstinence. I don’t know if you know, but I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I in fact, was a virgin when I got married. I don’t know that it’s right for everyone.
But I do think that it simplifies a lot of life if you haven’t had sex with a lot of people before you get married. So we do teach our kids abstinence, we do teach them about condoms and birth control. And we do let them have all of the talks at school as well. So we do talk about accidents with my kids, I talk about why it’s important and all of the things that are brought up by having sex before you get married, things like infectious diseases, feelings that you have that might not be reconciled between you and them feelings that you have when you break up with that person and the chances of you having a lifelong relationship with that person and all those kinds of things. We do talk about abstinence. I bet a lot of you are like, Oh, this girl’s got her head in the sand. But I want to remind you that I am a labor and delivery nurse, I do not have my head in the sand.
As I said, I have delivered 11 year old, I see all sorts of things. So this is an educated choice that I’ve made to educate my kids to try and choose abstinence. We do. And we have talked about consent. I had definitely talked about consent with my son before he went to college about how you need to make sure that everyone is on board at every step in the process. We also talked about how consent can really only happen when you’re in your right mind, which means you can’t be completely drunk in order to consent, things like that. We have also talked about masturbation and how it can take over your life and healthy sexual feelings versus feelings that are affecting your daily activities of daily living. And I actually have a cousin who has a whole podcast on porn and sexual addiction. So I will link to that in the show notes. It’s really interesting. I think most people feel like that type of thing isn’t an issue, but it definitely can be I’ve seen it be an issue.
So here’s what I want you to read. Number out of this answer the question that they have don’t firehose them with every ounce of knowledge that you have start early. So you’re gonna start earlier than you think you should eight was working for us. But I think if my daughter lived in a certain area or had certain friends, we might go earlier. Finally, I would just listen to your parenting gut. You know, your child might need to know more about consent than another child or your child might need to know more about bathing suits than another child. I always feel like this child was giving you to you for a reason. And it’s your job to listen to your parenting gut and parent that child in the way that they need to be parented. And my talk has gone differently with each of our children. We are definitely open and willing to answer any questions. And I think that’s what’s most important is letting your child know that you’re not going to judge them by whatever they’re bringing to you. But you want to be a great way to answer any questions that they have. And I’ve encouraged my kids to all do that. Hopefully they do. Hopefully, they have other good adults around them that they could go to if they have a question and are unwilling to come to me for as well. So thats the talk.
I have to say even This podcast was a little bit awkward. I rarely feel like it’s awkward, but it’s just hard to talk to kids about it, especially if you came from a background and in a family where it was hard to talk about these types of things as well. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode, I have a whole parenting series that talks about practical ways to simplify your parenting It is called practical parenting. I will leave it in the show notes. I would love for you guys to join up, it’s totally free and find out some of the easy ways to prioritize your parenting. If you’d like to know more about talking to kids about sex. I have a whole article that is all about talking to kids about sex, it gives the actual talk that you could give your kids and a lot of people have had it super helpful. So I will link to that in the show notes. Big thanks to our sponsor family routines. If you’re looking to simplify parenting, getting in a routine is totally going to help you it’s going to make margins that allow you to do crazy things like have this type of talk a little bit easier. If you liked today’s episode, we’d love it. If you would share, subscribe and review it really makes a difference. We drop an episode every Monday and until then, I hope you have a tangle free day!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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