What is the appropriate age to talk to kids about sex?
If there’s any silver lining to come from last week’s “misguided” backlash to Yumi Stynes and Dr Melissa Kang’s Welcome To Sex, sexuality educators say it’s that more parents are thinking about how to have constructive conversations with their kids about sex.
Most parents can likely still recall their own awkward sex education experience, but we’ve come a long way in our understanding of “safe sex” and most modern sexuality education now begins before children are asking where babies come from.
Talking about sex with kids doesn’t need to involve one long, awkward conversation.Credit: iStock
In fact, Vanessa Hamilton, sexuality educator and author of Talking Sex: A Conversation Guide For Parents, says there is no such thing as too young to have an age-appropriate open and factual conversation with children.
“We teach them road safety, swimming lessons and healthy eating – and the sexual health and wellbeing of our children should be one of our main priorities and roles as parents,” she says.
“People say that they’ll lose their innocence if we tell them too young, but that implies learning about human sexuality is wrong, shameful, harmful, bad or taboo. In fact, they’ll lose their innocence if something bad happens to them that they didn’t want to happen, and actually giving them information decreases shame and guilt about their bodies and how they feel.”
Where sex education’s goal was once about avoiding unwanted pregnancies and STIs, Hamilton says that these days it’s far more comprehensive and is ultimately about setting young people up for a lifetime of positive and respectful relationships.
“My take-home message for parents is, ‘Who do you want to give them information about sex, sexuality, respect, relationships and consent?’ We want it coming from parents and carers and from the classroom, [not] pornography and the playground.”
So, where do we begin?
The pre-school years
From the time they’re toddlers, Hamilton says parents can lay good groundwork by using anatomically correct terminology. “We have to have accurate names because children need a vocabulary to be able to report if something’s wrong, if they’ve got a medical issue or if someone is harming them,” she explains. “Name body parts in a shame-free way – it’s eyes, nose, ear, foot, knee, vulva, vagina, penis, scrotum.”
The early years are also a time for talking about body safety.
“We teach them that they’re the boss of their own bodies and that their private parts are for themselves and no one has the right to touch them without their permission,” explains Samantha Read, manager of Schools and Community at Sexual Health Victoria.
“It’s common for young children to touch their body parts and if that’s happening, use age-appropriate language such as, ‘When you touch your penis or your vulva, it might feel nice – when you feel you’d like to do that, you might like to go into your bedroom because that’s something we do on our own because it’s a private body part’.”
Early school years
Questions about bodies and how they work are likely to continue into primary school, as curious young minds try to make sense of the world around them. “When questions arise, answer directly and honestly,” Read says.
“Parents can often be concerned about having the right answer, and then they might not end up saying anything at all. But that’s when children might learn through other sources of information, such as in the playground or the internet.”
Later primary years
If the conversation hasn’t already gone there, children are usually ready for more detail about anatomy and reproduction by later primary school.
Vanessa Hamilton’s script to answer the question “where do babies come from?”
There are lots of ways to have a baby, including IVF, surrogacy and adoption but the most common way is when a woman and a man decide they want to make a baby. They respect and love each other and talk about it a lot, and when they’re ready, they’ll choose a private place and time. They’ll be enjoying each other’s bodies, usually with no clothes on, and when they’re ready, the vagina will accept the penis. The penis will deliver the sperm and the sperm will travel up to meet the egg.
When questions about sex and body parts are answered succinctly, Hamilton says your child will likely follow with a pressing question like, ‘Can I have a biscuit?’
If they giggle and say they think it’s disgusting, she suggests countering with: “The reason you think that is because it’s not for kids – it’s for adult minds and bodies only. It takes many, many years for minds and bodies to be ready for something so complex as that”.
Teenage years
By the time kids are in their mid-teens, Read says they’re looking for more factual, informative details. “Research from 6500 secondary students aged 14 to 18 found they are calling for information about how to have healthy relationships,” she says.
“They want to go beyond biology and reproduction, into topics including gender, sexual diversity, masturbation, pleasure, how to talk to sexual partners and how to talk about consent.”
Australian research has found that almost half of girls and one third of boys aged between 16 and 17 have experienced some form of unwanted sexual behaviour towards them in the past 12 months.
“We absolutely have a responsibility to provide this information because it’s evidence-based and we know it’s protective,” Read says.
And the more available parents can be for these conversations, the better they’re likely able to counter-balance the other messages their kids are receiving.
“Mainstream pornography tells children that sex is violent, and if children’s main educator is TikTok, television and pornography, then they’re not getting helpful messages about respectful, loving, caring, joyful, pleasurable and intimate encounters,” Hamilton says.
“What’s wrong with knowing that there is this amazing way that the human species reproduces that feels good, is loving and wonderful, and is for adult bodies and minds only?”
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