Sex education for junior primary kids

[Gigi]

i wonder when is the time to start having sex ed type talks with a child. How to find out how to present age appropriate info.

Do primary school aged kids get sex education at school?

i am so unsure what and how, to discuss sex ed with my child, would love to find some guidance on this topic.

My nearly six year old, keeps asking me about period management and i keep fobbing her off, cos i'm unsure what to say. We live in a very small place. Just how honest should i be with her? I hear that girls are maturing earlier these days, e.g starting periods at 8 (some) so i guess puberty needs to be taught earlier. I don't want to scare my child, but i'd rather her hear stuff from me, rather than gossip in the playground (potentially incorrect info from other kids).

so far, she's been read the Bare Naked book and the "everyone's got a bottom" storybook. All very innocuous stuff, but correct names of body parts are familiar to her, as is the concept of body privacy and body autonomy.
unsure where to go from here. Sure that before i AM ready for it, MORE questions will be forthcoming, i will be put on the spot. Feel like i should be preparing now, so be ready for it (a bit more ready, than i am now).

[Butterfly Dawn]

I got my 1st sex ed class the last year st primary and it was the best I ever had.
We live in a very conservative place and hubby wasn't really given any sex ed.
My 6/7 yr old son is interested and aware. Making his 4/5year old brother aware. Now they have a sister they have confirmation things are different between girls and boys.

I too ponder this question and would be glad to hear what others have done.

We certainly don't have access to books along those lines which makes me cringe. Espc considering all the soft porn pics that pop up all over our internet sites if the proxy isn't working. Stupid great firewall

[Tinks]

There arent any formal sex ed classes in early primary. I always answered my kids questions honestly and age appropriately as they asked them.

[Traveller]

I have an usborne book "how my body works" which explains the reproductive system in terms that are understandable for primary school kids. It doesn't focus on sex which I like, it's just another body system and they are all explained. DS1 reads it quite frequently as he is currently quite obsessed with bones and muscles.

With our kids we answer questions when they are asked. There have been lots about the creation of children and my older kids are fairly familiar with what sex is and how it creates babies. My twins haven't really asked yet beyond the questions of how they got out my tummy.

[briggsy's girl]

I was reading an online article the other day about a primary school here in Vic teaching af appropriate sex Ed from grade prep and hoping it would expand state wide soon... Not what you asked about, but when I read th title of your post I thought it in reference to that article


Anyway, back to your question!

I agree that being age appropriate and accurate is important. We are doing this with dd as much as possible. She knows about periods and managing bleeding. When she asks why I tell her in basic terms that mummy's body got ready in case she wanted to have another baby, and when there wasn't a baby, her body had to get rid of that. I haven't told her how a baby gets in there but if she asks i will try and find a way to explain it that is age appropriate.

She is body curious and touches herself so we are teaching her that it's only her that should touch herself (or us/Granma during bath/drying) and its a private thing so if she wants to touch herself she should go in her bedroom. We don't want to give her a complex about it so we are trying to teach her gently about right touching and wrong touching, privacy etc. she has started asking to dry herself after bath/shower so we let her.

It's a tough call on how far to go in explanations. Don't base what you teach bilby on her age. Talk to her and gauge her understanding and teach her appropriate to that. She may be ready for more than other kids her age, she may not. I know dd has more knowledge of periods and things due to not being able to avoid it (she was dragged to hospital when I was excessively bleeding last year and asked questions we had to answer to stop her getting scared)

[bellany]

Here they do sex ed in primary.
I would answer her questions honestly. Don't offer extra info just answer her questions. If she is asking she is ready to hear it
They spoke about how in grade 3 they tell the kids about a man's sperm and a female egg joining and the cells dividing and show the pic explaining it looks like a soap bubble. None of the kids ever ask how the sperm get to the egg cos they aren't ready to know that much info and what they are given is enough. Then they move onto pics of a baby growing in a uterus etc.
I've followed that kind of principal with my kids so far and they seem to be happy with what I've told them lol

[briggsy's girl]

it's coming up with an error at the moment so i can't open and link the article, but it's titled "Preps getting sex education lessons" and is about a school/schools in Geelong

[sweetpea678]

I've actually pushed for my kids school to start teaching about changing bodies earlier the the last grad of primary school. Not he's easily sex Ed but what happens as we grow up etc. my 12 year old got her period and started getting boobs etc at 10. Now at 12 over half hat class mates have too. One poor girl who is friends with my dd got her period the first time when at her dads and didn't know what to do as she didn't feel comfortable talking to her dad. She used just toilet paper as pads for two days till my daughter told me ans I said to give her a pack of hers.

I think if the schools taught it a bit younger both girls and boys would benefit from it as things change and they know what is normal. I had spoken with my daughter a bit but not a lot as I thought I had a few more years before I would need to worry.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

In the UK "Sex Ed" starts pre-school. But that's about the importance of washing hands rather than sex. But it is all about a healthy body and how to keep it healthy, also that other people don't touch areas that are under clothes (good blanket rule really).

Had an argument with DH last night - he told Liebling not to have his hand in his pants and to stop playing with his penis. I agreed: you only touch your penis in private. DH got upset: Liebling should NEVER play with his penis. I didn't laugh in his face, but did ask "yeah, how well did that rule work out for you?"

But about periods - Liebling is old enough to ask why Mama is bleeding, so I can explain I'm not injured (please don't kiss it better!), but sometimes grown-up women have something called a "menstrual period" where they bleed out their vaginas. It doesn't hurt (ha!) and they aren't poorly, it just happens. And it's OK. No, Liebling, it will not happen to you. If you bleed from anywhere you should tell someone.

[Phteven]

My boys asked about periods. I told them that every month a woman's body makes a comfy nest for a baby to grow but if there is no baby then they body gets rid of the nest and grows again.

There is a book about the difficult questions children ask. I think the author is Mariam Stoppard (or something similar). It has age appropraite answers for all sorts of awkward questions.

[Tinks]

Here they do sex ed in primary.
I would answer her questions honestly. Don't offer extra info just answer her questions. If she is asking she is ready to hear it
They spoke about how in grade 3 they tell the kids about a man's sperm and a female egg joining and the cells dividing and show the pic explaining it looks like a soap bubble. None of the kids ever ask how the sperm get to the egg cos they aren't ready to know that much info and what they are given is enough. Then they move onto pics of a baby growing in a uterus etc.
I've followed that kind of principal with my kids so far and they seem to be happy with what I've told them lol

That's exactly how I told my kids. I filled in the gaps when they were older.

[nickle730]

My kids school offers a family sex ed program from... hmmm, I think it's prep? So the whole family can go along and there are guest speakers from an organisation that speak about puberty, reproduction and general health in an age appropriate manner. Sorry, can't remember the name of the organisation! Then the whole family plays games relevant to the topic. Sounds a bit naff, but it's a good way to break the ice and get families talking in an open way. I have never attended any of these evenings as I am very comfortable talking openly to my kids, but I have been told by other parents that they are great.

I answer any questions my kids have in a simple, honest way. The hardest part is to only answer the question and not offer further information. I find that my kids go away and process the information and then come back with more questions. My kids were 5 and 7 when DD2 was born... we had 7 months of LOTS of questions!! 'How did the baby get in your tummy, mummy?'!!!

[Gigi]

My boys asked about periods. I told them that every month a woman's body makes a comfy nest for a baby to grow but if there is no baby then they body gets rid of the nest and grows again.

There is a book about the difficult questions children ask. I think the author is Mariam Stoppard (or something similar). It has age appropraite answers for all sorts of awkward questions.

bilby keeps on asking me, why i have mumma pads. She sees my drawer of them, wonders what they are. So she's not asking about periods as such, has not seen me bleeding or anything, has just seen unused pads and is curious about why i reach for those (once a month obviously, not that she registers it's once a month). I try to manage my periods out of her sight, but she has this uncanny knack of wanting me, just when i need some privacy, our bathroom is 1.5 x 1.6 in size. it's very close to the kitchen and her bedroom. everywhere is very close in our place.

I guess my fear is, the accompanying questions, not just the first one. She has pretty good logic. So if i say - women bleed once a month, so that's why i need the mumma pads - i suspect she will think about that and come back to me with, "when will that happen to me mum?" - so that's another question i'm unsure how to answer (a five year) about. She already has lots of bad dreams, forever asking me when will i die (she's scared of her mummy and daddy dying and leaving her alone, as she has so few relatives), so talking about bleeding - which she might relate to sickness/dying - i am nervous about.

She seems quite comfortable about concepts like breastfeeding and a baby coming out of a mummy's vagina. I cannot bring myself to discuss the c-section i had with her, i feel too upset to discuss that memory, i have "shut her down" when she starts talking about it - cos of course, being a kid, she uses blunt language which i can't cope with.

i have been told, in our state education system, Protective Behaviours is a principle, taught from kindy. But what she has been told so far, is very mild, more stuff to do with privacy and self esteem.

[Phteven]

For a 5 year old the teenage years seem quite remote. I don't see the harm in an honest answer. For most girls it starts about the same time as they become a teenager. For some it is earlier and for others it is later.
I can see that you might be worried about the association with bleeding but the fact that you're still standing and you're obviously fine should be proof that it is essentially a safe, natural process.

[briggsy's girl]

i tend to agree with Onyx - being a teenager is a very long way away to a five year old, and explaining it now rather than hiding it from her may actually help her to see that not everything relating to bleeding means illness/death. it might help her to put some things in perspective and make normal events (like AF) seem less scary for her

DD has asked why mummy bleeds (we have sliding doors to the ensuite and she just walks on in, so i've given up on the privacy thing!) - i told her that mummys tummy gets ready for a baby to grow in there like she did, and when there is no baby, i have to get rid of the stuff in there that the baby doesn't need - and that's how it happens. she was older when we planted her placenta under her tree, so we talk about how she was joined to me via her belly button to her placenta, and when there is no baby there, the bit that the placenta joins on mummy has to come away. some of it is probably a bit more complex than she is ready for, but she is putting the bits together a little each time i bleed, and she remembers enough to not be freaked out by it and to ask questions to answer her own curiosity, so we just run with it. i also tell her that, given that she is a girl, it will happen to her one day too, but she shouldn't hope for it to happen too soon, cos it's not much fun. when she asks me when it will happen to her, i refer to a bigger kid (for us, it's her cousin, but for bilby, perhaps you could reference the biggest kids at school or the kids that go to the high school) and i tell her i don't know for sure, but probably when she's older/bigger than those kids. given af didn't start for me til i was 16, i won't give her a specific time frame!

i know it's not easy to answer the questions, especially given the mumma instinct to protect our kidlets from subjects that seem to grown up/advanced/scary/overwhelming for them when we think it through with our own knowledge base - but sometimes it's more scary for them to have information hidden from them (or that's how it feels to them). you can point the conversation in the direction of "normal" if you are wanting to avoid discussion of her particular birth, given the trauma you have experienced. it sounds like you've already talked to her about it in the past, and given she is already aware of vaginal birth, she is well on the way to understanding periods without much extra explanation - she knows about birth - so explaining to her that the body gets ready for a baby, and when there isn't one, you have to get rid of the materials (nest or whatever you want to call it) through the vagina ready to start again next month isnt' that much of a stretch. perhaps finding an explanation that works for you is going to be the hardest bit - think of something that you can explain to her that is clear and would make sense. does she make her own bed each day? maybe something along the lines of "just like you make your bed every day to go to bed at night, a womans body makes a type of bed in her tummy for a baby to grow in. if there is no baby in there, you get a period. a period is like when you strip your bed to wash the sheets - it needs to start fresh, like having clean sheets" (not the clearest way to say it - trying to type it out is very difficult - but you could use an idea that she would understand about starting fresh and that it's not a bad thing)

[Gigi]

thanks Onyx and BG, i do feel better about this now, am formulating what to say, next time this issue comes up. You're right, we bleed, and we're still standing.

[krysalyss]

I am mostly guided by DS as to what he is interested in knowing. He knows how babies come out (both vaginally and c/section). He has seen animals mating (but hasn't yet twigged what humans may do). He understands periods and knows what tampons are, and what tampon bins are for, and he knows the proper names for the body parts. So that is about what we are up to. He is 5. I am guessing he will ask more when he is interested in more and I will just try and answer honestly.

[Mak]

Gigi I think you've had some great advice! I try to answer with simple facts and then ask if there are any more questions. We try to reinforce that the girls ask us too if there is anything else. DD1 is very inquisitive and rarely lets things slide without a barrage of further questioning. I am trying really hard not to let my hang ups spread too as we never talked about any of this. She then likes to share with everyone else lol. That is where is gets interesting....... Good luck, just remember you want to encourage trust and open communication with Bilby! xxxx