Childrens Questions About Sex...A Parental Guide

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How you answer childrens questions about sex will greatly impact and set a strong foundation of sexual and emotional well-being, if addresed properly. Many young women and men are concerned with love and marriage, but have become aware of inner handicaps of their own handicaps of thought and feeling which they recognize as their heritage from a generation of other-mindedness in regard to sexual matters. There were silences that caused wonderings, punishments that were not understood, prohibitions which built up timidities, over a long trail of unrest and fear throughout childhood up to maturity.

Mothers and fathers of babies, nursery-age children, school-age children and kindergarten will undoubtedly ponder the following questions:

At what age do you begin to explaine life to children?

How much or little do you tell?

How much do you explain about their growing-up changes?

How can you prevent them from talking or listening to others?

Does to much knowledge lead to trying out things with each other?

My little boy or girl doesn't ask questions.

These are representative questions, and they strike deep into the heart of education as we see it today, for sex education is no longer merely a matter of biological instruction. Knowledge of human reproduction is an essential in every instance, of course. It is the basic science back of the whole sexual life. But just as the physical aspects of marriage are for women and men today subordinate to the psychic and intellectual aspects, so in a sex-education program, especially one in the home, biological information is far from being the element of greatest importance.

Most significant is the guidance and nurture of the emotional life of your children; their emotional natures as a whole, and especially those aspects of their emotional natures which have their roots in the sexual impulse. Frustrations of childhood, failures, hurts, jealousies, misinterpretations of childish love affairs, play episodes for which society has such swift punishment, clandestine sex knowledge; these are the experiences which leave their blight on the later love responses.

Life as a whole with its conventions and social codes does not present an open highway to the goal of sexual maturity. But forward-looking parents can, by giving knowledge, understanding, and a sympathetic interpretation of the various phenomena of the sexual life, preventing many of the hazards of the past and providing a better assurance of happiness for their children.

There is no set or certain age to begin sex education. There is a time to begin, and that time is indicated by any expressed interest on the part of your young daughter or son; a question, an observation, or a comment. The time to stop is when his or her interest stops. Don't run on ahead of him or her. Usually interest is stimulated by some incident at school or in the neighborhood; newborn puppies a new baby home from the hospital, something seen on the television or in the newspaper. With many young children, concern about their own origin seems to arise spontaneously. "Where did I come from, Mother?" It is a natural question, yet it has a certain mystical quality, coming as it does from within and reaching back into the unknown.

The greatest number of questions arise between the ages of four and six. After a chils starts school, questions recede gradually until by the ninth, tenth, or eleventh year children have reached what is called the questionless age. This is not an indifferent age; just the opposite; but questions are less frequent. Possibly they are preoccupied by other interests.

At adolescence there is a keen revival of interest but often there is more resistance to open family discussion than in the pre-adolescent age. Maturing children are touchy, sensitive, self-conscious, modest, seclusive. They run to cover at the hint of an intimate topic, especially in the hands of parents who are inclined to be preachy and teachy and too inquisitive.

No matter what the age, whether kindergarten, elementary, or high school, if questions are asked or interest is shown, explanations are given in accordance with the age and understanding.

The questions that your son or daughter ask are as the sands of the sea, yet sifted and analyzed, they reveal a fairly uniform structure on which one may build. It is a foursquare structure of pregnancy, birth, fertilization, and mating, in the order named. They start with a concrete situation, posing a specific question; "Where did Mrs. Jones get her baby?"

Well, where did Mrs. Jones get her baby? You and I know, yet the thought of explaining it all to a young child can be overwhelming. We didn't think that it would until faced with giving the proper response. "Oh, the baby. Babies grow inside their mothers." How unbelievably simple this may have sounded! . Nothing about the birds and bees or seeds....Just "all babies grow inside their mothers." Six little words.

Well maybe we could be a little more specific... "Babies grow in a little place just made for them to grow in. It's in here, the place is, all mommiess," and you give a friendly pat against your side. Many children ask where the place is, and many think it is the stomach. Other children have said so. "The place is called the uterus, and is a little sac that stretches as the baby grows." You don't have to say all this. Whether you do or not depends upon your child. Some children, especially the younger ones, may let you off with a "six little words". Others may want more detail. It's all an individual matter. Anyway, you keep on answering as long as the questions are asked, and no longer. (Sometimes enthusiasm runs away.)

Don't be surprised, once the matter of pregnancy is established, to be confronted with a swift second question, "How does the baby get out of the mother?"

An explanation of the process of birth is the second foundation square of the whole structure. Pregnancy is the first. One depends upon the other, so we say: "In every mommie there is a passage that leads from the place where the baby is growing. When the baby is ready to live by himself as a separate little person, he is brought down the passage and out through an opening into the world. This coming into the world is called being born. Another word for the same thing is 'birth.' Your birthday is your being-born day."

Little girls and boys are often troubled at the thought of birth. It seems like an impossible feat. So you explain the contraction of the muscles, the size of a newborn baby; "about as big as your doll. " Most conscientiously you leave an impression of the naturalness of the birth process. Not to create any feeling of distress or anxiety. Neither do you, as the mother, seek to appropriate all the laurels. The children do not owe you love and obedience because of "what you went through for them," and "that is the reason I love you so" leaves dad a bit out in the cold. No, birth should not be presented as a sacrifice or an ordeal, but as a fulfillment, a joyous fulfillment which mother and father share together.

The two remaining foundation squares, fertilization and mating, take more courage to answer. They strike so closely into the heart of relationships. You are fearful, too, that the knowledge will be misused, that it will lead to sex play and experimentation. You don't know how to phrase your response or the answer anyway. There are some things you just can't put into words!

Your child who has just learned that babies grow in their mothers, says: "I wonder what makes the babies start. How do they get in their mothers?"

"Babies are not babies from the very start," you answer. "They have to grow before they are born just as you grow now after you are born. Each baby starts at first from the union of two tiny particles of living matter called cells. One cell is in the father, one is in the mother. These two particles must come together and unite away up in the mother where the baby is to grow. When they do, then the baby begins to take form."

Now for the next step, mating or sex. No, it's not so difficult if you have not neglected to build up a foundation for it as you went along. For an understanding of the act of mating, the children must first be familiar with the differences in body structure; that boys have an outer organ, and the girls have a long, slender inner passage. Knowledge of the first they acquired in the come-and-go of daily home association; of the second, when they learned how a baby was born. In a discussion of mating, it takes usually just the merest reference to these structural differences for children to see immediately the mechanics of mating. "Yes, these two parts fit closely together so that the father cells (sperm cells) are able to pass over to the mother and up to the place where the baby is to grow."

To many parents this will seem a very cold, stark, and inadequate presentation of a deeply physical experience. In these first explanations of human reproduction, pregnancy, birth, fertilization, and mating, I believe it would be out of place to try to bring about any considerable awareness of either the sensuous or the emotional involvements in the act of procreation. That knowledge will comes later. But the feeling which all our first teaching conveys is important. It is especially important in relation to the three major experiences, pregnancy, birth, and mating, about which so much resistance has centered in the past. Our teaching should carry with it a natural acquiescence to Nature's own plan, rather than any outward expression of our own mental philosophy toward it. Most children, given a knowledge of the basic facts of reproduction, usually grant them a ready and happy acceptance.

Those parents who met their children's questions and other expressions of interest as they arose, and also those who were not able to, seek, as junior-high-school days approach, the assurance that their children are ready for that wider experience. "I don't know how much he or she knows; my child doesn't say anything, and doesn't want me to." Certainly the last thing one does is to probe or question. If you have reason to feel that something must be done, you may go about it in several ways:

1. You may take the initiative by introducing into family conversation some topic of current interest which will promote questions; incubator babies, the quintuplets, child marriages, the recent fourteen-year-old father.

2. Pets are marvelous biological laboratories; rabbits, mice snakes, puppies turtles. Of course there must be mates and matings.

3. Well-chosen books, simple biologies and Nature books as well, open up thought and discussion.

If the subject is not marred by too much realism or sentiment or moralizing, older children will respond with interest to a discussion of human reproduction. Even when a child is approachable, if your own emotional balance is insecure, it is, perhaps, well to work out these objective and tangible activities with the children, as with a fellow student. The joint interest is a way of achieving in the end greater poise for yourself.

Before we leave the subject of the biological aspects of sex teaching, a word concerning preparation for maturing. In general, experience shows that explanations of the outward phenomena which mark the onset of adolescence; menstruation and seminal emissions; should be made to both boys and girls long before they are likely to occur; at ten, surely, or even earlier if questions arise. Many children become acquainted with them through older children at school and receive not too pleasant impressions. In pre-adolescence the whole matter can be presented so that it is accepted objectively and impersonally. With both gorls and boys there is often a feeling of prideful expectancy, and some day you may expect to hear a joyful announcement, "Mother, oh, Mother; it's come!"

At this point I would like nothing better than to leave our teaching to do its own good work for the children. But in the minds of parents there is an ever recurring anxiety; to what use will the children put this new knowledge. Ideas are not, we know, soporific. They tend to translate themselves into action. Will the children talk? And won't they start experimenting? The matter of "talking outside" is rapidly taking care of itself through the general adoption of sex-education teaching by most young parents. Nobody runs around telling what everyone knows. It has become a commonplace. Occasionally one may caution young school-age children not to say much to the other children, but if they do in their enthusiasm or in a casual moment, no great harm is done. Certainly one does not punish for it.

In all this provision for your children's understanding, one thing we counsel against. It is the choice of another person; friend, nurse, minister, doctor; to take your place, unless that person has had special sex-education training and possesses those personal qualifications which fit him for the task. There is no lay person so well qualified to teach children as their own intelligent mothers and fathers. They are able to establish a valued inner and progressive bond of confidence when their teaching has been happily and wisely carried out. After all, in this age of transition when so much is counted good that once was counted bad, and so much counted bad that was once good, it doesn't matter much what our words are so long as they convey reassurance, dependability, and a sense of the rightness of living with rather than against the best of Nature's plans.

Does sex instruction tend to start misconduct; suggest to children that they undress each other, play "father and mother," and does it impel to free speech and behavior? No, on the contrary, sex teaching, has proved itself to be the best of preventives. It has a stabilizing influence and leaves the minds of the children free to turn to other interests. My experience shows a high correlation between sex misconduct and lack of adequate sex instruction.

The most difficult phase of sex education is the interpretation and guidance of sex activities in childhood. Our traditional codes and sanctions have measured their punishments out of all proportion to the offense. In order to meet this type of conduct constructively, one must avoid severe punishment, the awakening of a deep sense of guilt, and set oneself to work out a quiet regimen of rehabilitation. Best of all, one comforts oneself with the knowledge that, except in cases of psychic trauma, studies reveal that there is little relationship between early sex play and later delinquency.

Wise parents of today build a solid foundation for the sexual happiness of their children. No longer do they withhold knowledge of love, mating, and the renewal of life. They equip themselves with a thorough understanding of the emotional nature of their children and of the technique of presenting sex instruction. We of this generation are seeing changes in thought and patterns of sex teaching and ethics. Codes and sanctions are in transition. It is not that in the years to come we shall have more knowledge or more freedom purely for the sake of knowledge and freedom. It is that we and our children and our children's children, who are tomorrow's men and women, shall live with more serenity, more wisdom, and more joyousness in their love relationships because of the foundations which we have built.

Top Of Childrens Questions About Sex

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