What age should we start sex education?
Sex education begins at birth. From the cradle until mature adulthood children need information, a source of dependable reference when told nonsense that frightens or alarms them and a haven of love on which they can rely no matter what. In addition to all this they need to see a close, loving relationship at work in their parents’ lives because the parents are their most important models for the future.
What if they don’t ask questions?
If the child is young leave the subject alone rather than force discussion on matters that he or she couldn’t care less about. In time most children want to know and they will ask you or someone else. Unfortunately, so much of our sex-negative thinking comes across unconsciously to our children, just from the way we react or behave, that they feel sex is a ‘no-go area’ and so do not feel like asking questions. A child’s questions may have been discouraged by a parent or even another adult, or he or she may have been fobbed off in the past and now does not know how to ask about something that obviously upsets his or her parents.
A lot of parents find that bringing up the subject under some other pretext works well but if you do this, don’t make the mistake of taking any spark of interest the child shows as an indication that he wants a full-blown medical prize-winning lecture on the subject. Some children are naturally more shy than others and others are less inquisitive about everything; others think they know it all anyway (even a seven year old may say the subject is boring and that he knows all about it). The main thing is to encourage and reward curiosity.
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