How to talk to a child about sex?

I remember my eldest son, who was five years old, came home one day after school. Giggling and blushing, he asked if his father and I were doing… (chuckles) something with the letter S. He was just stunned when we answered: “Yes, this is our Cuddle Time.”

Once we explained to him that Mom and Dad have their own Hug Time. When this Time comes, we give each other a lot of love. Since he loved to cuddle, this was understandable to him. He was happy to watch cartoons or play kgo on Sunday mornings, when Mom and Dad had Cuddle Time. Imagine how hard it was for him to realize that the kind, positive and familiar Cuddle Time was that vulgar, obscene C activity that his classmates made fun of.

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How to talk to a child about sex?

I was very glad that his first idea of ​​sex was something related to love, and not the “C word” that children whisper to each other. We raised our other two children the same way, and they also developed a healthy approach to sex. They saw something normal and positive in it, something that people do when they are mature. Just the other day, a mother at school said about my 11-year-old son: “How lucky you are with your son. He enlightens all our boys.”

I decided to share this because I faced criticism for a comment I made to a journalist for a teen magazine. I talked about orgasms, and also about the fact that if sex means something good to you, it will be good, but if, on the contrary, bad, then sex will be terrible. Of course, I didn’t mean that teenagers should be encouraged to have sex in order to have a good sexual experience.

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• How to talk to children about sexuality?

Of course, they know that sex is nice. Teenagers are generally not so naive, especially today. In the old days—before the advent of the Internet—we weren’t overwhelmed with information. We learned something about the reproductive system at school, plus talking about pistils and stamens with our parents … In short, we had to form the whole picture ourselves. Some did it better than others.

Today everything is different. Young people have an early natural interest in sex. How can they satisfy their curiosity? Given a choice between boring lectures about sperm and eggs, clumsy parental explanations, and much more interesting (from their point of view) and accessible information that they can get from porn sites, many will prefer the latter option.

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• Childhood sexuality: cult, taboo, crime?

So porn becomes an educational model—after all, don’t people have fun there? Unfortunately, no one explains to teenagers that porn is just a beautiful picture taken to excite. The people there look like they’re fine. But that doesn’t mean they’re really good. If you think watching porn gives kids enough of an idea about sex, then read no further.

But if you want your children to have a healthy attitude towards sex; so that they are satisfied with their body and understand that sexuality can bring them a lot of pleasure and joy; if you want your children to be able to make the right decisions about when to start having sex, why to do it and with whom … Then you need to talk to them.

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• Sex: talk can not be silent

This is not always easy, given that we ourselves are not always comfortable with our own sexuality. Therefore, you first need to understand yourself: look at your sexuality and understand it. Only then will you be truly ready to freely discuss this topic with your children, to give them true and positive ideas. And, more importantly, you yourself need to set an example of positive sexuality.

For more details, see the personal Online sex therapist Jacqueline Hellyer.