When is it time for the Birds and Bees?
Tuesday 4th of February 2014 | Category: Opinion | Written by: Sharon PicklesOver the years I have used a varitety of methods to introduce the subject or sex and puberty to my children; infact more often than not, they are ahead of the game and have asked me questions long before I was expecting to have to come up with answers! My two boys and three girls are all very different and I have found that there is no one 'right' approach. With my first 'batch' of children, I bought a couple of books and placed them in the children's bookshelf for quite a while before we started looking at them together. We still have Clare Rayner's 'Body Book', which is full of detailed pictures and gives enough information for the curious child and embarrassed parent to act as an aid to talking about sex and puberty; throughout the twenty years since I first bought it, this book has been read by many visiting cousins and friends, as well as my own children. We also have an hilarious book by Babette Cole called 'Mummy Laid an Egg' which is legendary in my extended family as being a fabulously funny book; using some brilliant illustrations, it tells the story of some silly parents who don't know where babies come from and need to be informed of the facts by their children. Naturally, I am not suggesting that you use books alone to educate your children on such important matters; they simply give a helpful framework and provide you with some useful pictures to add to your discussions.
My eldest son was four when he started asking more specific questions (whilst in the back of the car on the way to Grandma's house!) and he wanted more detailed answers than, 'you came from mummy's tummy' or 'Daddy gave Mummy a seed' kind of thing. He received my explanations with a look of mild amusement but felt satisfied that I had given him the information he wanted; it was just another one of the many questions that he had about the world about him, like 'what happens when you die?' and 'do dinosaurs really exist?'. This is how I think discussions about sex and puberty should be; a perfectly natural and normal aspect of our lives which shouldn't be made out to be something taboo or a big deal.
Recently my 6 year old daughter started asking questions about the tell tale signs she had noticed in the bathroom, that indicated how her 12 year old sister had started having her first periods. She seemed a little young for the full on description of how her sister's body was changing and the joy that is puberty, but she needed some answers as she was worried that her sister might be ill because of the blood she had seen. So, I explained about how a girl's body changes in preparation for having babies later in life and gave her the details in a way she could understand. Far from being freaked out by the prospect of bleeding every month, she simply felt happy that what was happening to her sister was perfectly normal and nothing to worry about. I worried that she might tease her sensitive sister with annoying questions about it, but she seems to have simply filed the information away for now until it becomes more relevant to her. The question had never arisen before as I started an early menopause when she was a baby and she hadn't observed anything to spark off her curiosity before.
My tween-age daughter is a sensitve and charmingly innocent soul who never asked questions about sex and puberty when she was a younger child; she fully believed in Father Christmas until she was at least ten years old. I started discussing periods and puberty with her when she was about ten, which may seem quite late to some mothers but knowing my daughter as I do, I felt she wasn't quite ready before that. Once again, I put a couple of books in her bookshelf that she could refer to if she wanted to; we liked 'The Little Book of Growing Up' as a starting point and as something to help answer questions she had for herself.
There really is no right time for talking about the birds and bees, just be prepared for questions and be as honest and relaxed as you can; oh, and be prepared to have a laugh to, because nothing is more funny to children than bodily functions and people with no clothes on!
share this page with friends and family
|
|
|
