Info based on content from the BOOK: A chicken’s Guide to Talking Turkey with your Kids about SEX (Leman/Bell. Ch 1, 2)

Introducing the ‘topic’ before it becomes an ‘issue’,……………………… or down the track, a ‘crisis’!!!

The most important thing a preadolescent needs is information??? TRUE or FALSE?!?! FALSE: Information is important, but more importantly what a child needs to succeed is an involved & loving parent.

Grades 4-5.

The first base is to cultivate BASIC HYGIENE skills before hormones kick in. To be interested in the other changes increases openness. ‘First base’: zits, cracking voice, bad-hair days, clumsiness, fashion dramas. Also consider instances when your child injures themselves or feels awkward; this is an opportunity for you to engage with your child & to demonstrate that you care.

Physical maturity does not equal emotional/relational maturity.

Consider what it means to have ‘the talk’ versus being close enough to your child to talk meaningfully about sex & being purposeful in nurturing an ongoing, open, loving relationship. This is an ongoing process if you’re doing your job right, not a one off talk!

A parents’ common retort: ‘You MUST ‘abstain from sex’. This will remain solely a one-liner if YOU abstain from talking openly with your kids about their sexuality. This will become a heart response as they understand WHY they ‘MUST abstain’ within the context of an open, ongoing, parent-child connection.

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8-14 y.o.

Puberty & the ‘firsts’ that accompany it. The first bra/ first period/ first discussion about development & expected behaviour with opposite sex.

8-9 y.o.

Your child won’t say a lot but probably thinking about sex & related issues

10-11y.o

Your child is probably talking with friends about sex & related issues

12-14 y.o.

Your child may be having sex (especially if you haven’t talked with & been involved in their lives to-date)

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AIM

• to become better equipped versus burying your head in sand & HOPING your child/ren will turn out okay. The ‘ostrich approach’ may feel like the better option, but it won’t be doing your child any favours! Accepting the view that ‘they’ll probably go off the rails anyway’ is even more dangerous & defeatist!

• with PUBERTY kids will be actively thinking about their bodies, talking about sex & sorting thru the conflicting messages from peers & society. Leave them to sort it on own & you’re essentially abandoning them to the lure of hormones, the seduction of false & twisted info & the painful reality of inappropriate sex activity. And, perhaps worse, unwanted pregnancies, fractured hearts & an inability to function in healthy relationships.

KEY

• knowing your child well enough to pick up signs & the stirring of puberty. These stirrings are ‘wake-up’ calls only & not a sign to panic. Adolescence is a ways off yet!

STATISTICS

• a passive approach to sex & issues will no longer work in today’s society where a vast majority of kids under 20 are having sexual intercourse, where oral/anal sex = Christian sex, where 27% are having sex under 18 y.o., where 55% are fondling breasts & treating their peers as objects of their sexual desire.

BIG ISSUES

• BOYS & the ‘Big M’, Nocturnal Emission & wet dreams. Helping your boy grow the fruit of self-control early in life will assist him greatly when this becomes an issue. (BOOK: Every Young Man’s Battle: Strategies for victory in the real world of sexual temptation. (Arteburn/Stoeker) Also see Chapter 6 in 5 Conversations You Must Have with your Son.

• GIRLS & the opposite sex-the relationships will be either exploitive or healthy-girls need to be prepared to handle older boys’ interest (consider the danger of trial & error versus a loving parent’s advice & expected, projected preparation of what’s to come which will serve to avoid increased or unnecessary emotional trauma).

The end of the ‘firsts’ will evolve as your child moves from puberty to adolescence. Your child will move beyond breast buds & her period, beyond his first emission/wet dream to the stage where emotional/psychological changes begin in the TWEEN years– when kids are straddling childhood & adolescence. Early puberty & the Tween years are a time where u still have a great deal of influence by lovingly instructing your child & setting boundaries. They’ll still ‘hear’ you! Sex educators often act as if most important thing preadolescents need is info. They’re WRONG! The most important thing a child needs is an involved & loving parent!!!