Sex Education

Tropez

Person_one wrote: »

School sex education is really hit and miss. If I'd only had the school provision I'd have known all the mechanics at 10 but never have heard of female orgasm!

Well, admittedly, they don't help you out on technique and the like.

Perhaps it was because I went to a CofE school but we had the standard sex education lessons as part of PSHE in Year 7 and then Religion and Ethics classes in Year 8, 9 and again in 10 covered everything about teenage pregnancy, abortions etc.

They weren't quite the "sex before marriage and you shall be damned!" lessons of some heavy Catholic schools (although religious viewpoints on it were considered) but they did offer two deterrants by making a point of the increased cancer risks in sexually active teenage girls, and having the biggest police officers they could find come in to tell the boys what happens in jail if they do anything before both parties are 16.

thegirlintheattic

Just be honest but age appropriate. Don't use silly things like 'special hugs' - that's the way madness lies.

She should be getting the whole puberty talk in Year 6.

marywooyeah

we had sex education when I was 7 or 8 at school, but by then I think I knew most of it from the playground! I'm 24, I do think that it is talked about a lot more these days so people tend to know younger, I didn't know "everything" just that the man put the p in the v then a baby grew for 9 months.
In fact, I thought that everytime people had sex the woman got pregnant lol, thats the way it was presented to us!

my parents did get me a book around the same time, but I think I just looked at the animated pictures rather than reading the words.
I would say around 6 or 7 probably, but I won't tell my DS until he asks I think.

HeidiHi

I can't bear it when I hear about 8 and 9 year olds who started their periods and thought they were going to bleed to death because nobody had explained it all to them.

It's best to arm children with the information they need, told in the way you want them to learn about it, because otherwise it might make them vulnerable to any upsetting or confusing nonsense people tell them.

Naf

Under no circumstances should it be left to the school; or, worse, kids at school to explain.
As people have said, if the questions are being asked they need to be answered head on, but in a manner appropriate to their age. Jot easy, sure, and I have no clue how exactly I'm going to (eldest is 3), but I at least hope to do better than my parents, it was pretty much left to school when I was about 10, daft videos they show, was ridiculous, although granted I learned 'the mechanics' as it were well enough.

Chakani

I knew the mechanics from a book very early (I think is was How Your Body Works by Usborne, but this was some time ago!) - I clearly recall overhearing my mum describe my younger brother to a friend as a "happy accident". I spent several years being amazed that you could do THAT by accident!

Seriously though, I got the school talk after my periods had started, so I was very lucky that my mum was so open. It's never too early to answer questions in a sensible, factual way. I used to do sex education with 10-15 year olds at work, and the best advice I was ever given was "answer precisely the question they have asked, don't get yourself tied into knots trying to give them information they haven't asked for".

For example "why does my penis get hard?"
"Because there are special tissues inside it that can fill with blood (or fluid if your son will be frightened by the thought of a penis full of blood)"

If the next question is "Why??", you could give a brief description of the mechanics, or show him a book, but my answer would be along the lines of "it has a special job to do, sperm travels though a tube inside the penis to the egg, and being hard helps it to do that because it makes the tube inside straight"

Zoetoes

Just buy a book and ask her if she would like you to sit and read it with her or if she'd like to read it on her own and then ask you anything.

The books have pictures in (but funnily drawn!) which will help her understand.

My son is 10 and read a book about it (when he was 7 or 8) and found it hilarious, he had 'the video' in school a couple of weeks ago (year 5) and came home to explain erections to me which is fine but then he went on to explain them to my mum

sneezyboots

I teach year 5 and just before the summer hols we do 5 lessons on puberty and the human life cycle. It actually ties in nicely to the life cycle topic we cover just before, just leads from plants to humans. Once they know all the words for reproduction (fertilization, ovary etc) it should make more scientific sense to them. They cover actual baby making in depth in year 6. It is surprising how little most of the year 5s actually know about puberty. Most know the basics such as hair growing and periods but they do have a lot of sensible questions that adults probably assume they already know.

My favourite question this year (he was trying to be silly) was: why when adults are trying to fertilize the egg at night do they go "uh uh uh"?
Needless to say I never looked at that parent in the same way again! :eek:

Nara

My DD is 5 and already asking some awkurd questions about babies. We explained that mummy has an egg which meets daddy's tadpole and a baby starts growing in my belly etc.

The problem was when she asked how the tadpole got to the egg:rotfl: I just said it was a bit complicated and I would explain when she got older as I think shes a bit too young to understand the sex bit of conception!

I will be explaining things to her when she gets older as girls do seem to start their periods younger and younger nowdays:eek: I was 14 when I started mine so knew about most things by that point anyway.

However my mum started her period at 9 and because her mum hadn't told her anything she thought she was bleeding to death and got sent home by the school only for her mum to tell her she didn't know what was happening and took her to the doctors for him to explain!! terrible.

Person_one

Nara wrote: »

My DD is 5 and already asking some awkurd questions about babies. We explained that mummy has an egg which meets daddy's tadpole and a baby starts growing in my belly etc.

The problem was when she asked how the tadpole got to the egg:rotfl: I just said it was a bit complicated and I would explain when she got older as I think shes a bit too young to understand the sex bit of conception!

I will be explaining things to her when she gets older as girls do seem to start their periods younger and younger nowdays:eek: I was 14 when I started mine so knew about most things by that point anyway.

However my mum started her period at 9 and because her mum hadn't told her anything she thought she was bleeding to death and got sent home by the school only for her mum to tell her she didn't know what was happening and took her to the doctors for him to explain!! terrible.

Tadpole! That's going to get confusing when they do life cycle of a frog in primary! What's wrong with sperm or at least seed? I actually think younger is better for learning about sex in an age-appropriate way (I have no problem with 'special grown up cuddle) as they take everything in their stride at that age.