I don't think you can start giving information too early - others may disagree with me on this. But I beleive the younger they are the more time they have to 'understand' the information given to them and get more information about things they aren't sure about. I do think you can leave it too late. If they are in high school they should know at least some things by now - if you don't tell them I can assure you they are getting the info from friends - and is likely to be quite inaccurate.
My parents didn't ever have a big sex talk as such. Rather from the time I was young (like a toddler) we had books in the house (where did I come from, etc) that we were free to read and which my mum would read to us every now and then over the years. Of course if we did have questions we were very free to ask. It always amazed me how littl my friends new about reproduction and their own bodies in high school, even as old as year 11 and 12.
That's basically what we've been doing, we've always talked openly about it. I was pregnant when the older 2 were 4 and 5 so naturally they asked questions which we answered. I bought books for them to read, which they still do now. THey know about puberty and body changes. Basically they know everything, or rather we've discussed everything except sex. They hear the word sex and have asked what it means, so they know it's what you do to have a baby but I jsut haven't explained the hows. Does that make sense?
One day my sister and BIL took DD (4yo at the time) to the footy, she was telling a friend of theirs that I was pregnant. He asked her how the baby got in there so DD gave him a rundown on the egg and sperm and how the baby grows in the womb and comes out the cervix......The friend later said to my sister that he is never going to ask that question to a kid again
Last edited by Tinks; March 19th, 2009 at 12:55 PM.
I never really had the "sex" talk, at 5 I asked my SIL about "the rope attached to the baby" (I'd seen a pic of a nearly full term bub in the womb - she gave me the whole shebang talk, probably a bit too graphic coz it grossed me out BIG TIME, but I took in as much as was relevant to me at the time, same SIL gave me the period talk when I got mine a month before my 8th birthday.
I knew the mechanics of the human body, I knew the external differences between male and female as nudity was normal in our household, so I'd seen my brother & my father naked.
I do remember having the "sex" talk at school and me getting sent out of the class because I was being a bit too graphic for what the teacher was trying to tell the class.
I remember just before my eldest nephew went to schoolies, I got permission from his friends parents and did a sex talk for them, more along the lines of condoms, how to put them on, STIs etc - I was an educator and home care worker for the aids council at the time so borrowed their education unit. Some of the boys thanked me after they got back from schoolies because I'd de-mistified it for them and they were prepared when they did have sex during schoolies.
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