Talking to children about sex at an early age can actually lessen the awkwardness and discomfort that comes with teaching the subject. Always choose to answer your children’s questions very simply. There is actually no need to exaggerate. Just give them the facts using the closest ideas that they can easily understand.
Today’s kids are overly aware and are highly influenced of what they see and hear. With the overstated role of media in a child’s life, there are certainly a lot of misrepresentations and wrong assumptions about sex that have to be corrected. On the other hand, talking to your children about sex is certainly not an easy job. A lot of parents actually feel very uncomfortable in doing so. But that should not be enough reason for you to put the whole thing off. Always remember that part of your child’s future depend on a good sex education coming from their own parents.
The right time to talk to children about sex is when they are quite young. These are their formative years, when children are at their most curious stages. They tend to ask embarrassing questions. And the most common question children ask their parents is how babies are born. Children could even ask where they came from before they came to be babies. And if you don’t take the opportunity to tell your kids about it, chances are, they would believe anything else they hear around them.
Teaching your kids about sex should start before they reach puberty. It is your responsibility as parent to prepare your children for the changes they can anticipate in their bodies, as they grow older. Some girls start puberty at the very early age of even 10, while boys may experience having wet dreams a little younger than that. If your kids know what to expect and when to expect them, then they won’t be afraid or worried about the things they feel the actual change happens.
It is also very important that you give your children honest answers. Lying or evading questions about sex would just make the situation worse. To guide you, try to use a good book as a reference. Doing so would enable them to clearly understand the concepts being introduced. Illustrations can be very effective when talking to kids aged 3 to 4 year old.
Talking to older children, say to kids aged 5 to 8 year old, maybe a little bit more complicated. For one thing, they have a wider knowledge about things than the younger ones. The right strategy would be asking them what they know or what they have heard from others and correct wrong ideas as necessary. An open communication is required so that sex education can be effectively delivered.