When did you teach your kids how babies are made?

[csdax]

My 5 year old loves to watch nature documentaries, and has seen animals mating. She's never asked questions, so I've not commented. (Actually, I tried to comment, once, but the scene was already onto something else, and she said "Mommy. Shhh. I'm trying to listen to David Attenborough!")

Anyway, we were gardening in the rain the other day, and watching snails. The conversation got onto baby snails and laying eggs and I mentioned the word 'fertilization'. She said "I know about fertilization - that's when the daddy sits on the mommy." Time for a conversation! So I got a book called "How Babies are Made" by Andrew Andry. I love it. It starts off showing how plants need parts from two different plants (the ova and the pollen) to make a seed, then goes on to how animals need parts from two animals (the egg and the sperm), to make a baby. My daughter's comment when she found out how the sperm reaches the egg was "Ewwww. Gross!" (which is now my 2 year old's favourite phrase ), but it was really clear, and she had no problem understanding any of it. I think the 'gross' comment probably means I should have read it to her earlier!

I told her about how babies grow when she was two and I was pregnant, so she already knew about the uterus, umbilical cord, birth etc., but I missed out the bit about how the process all started. I remember her telling my 80 year old mother-in-law "The baby might come out of a cut in Mommy's tummy, or it might come out of her vagina!" My MIL just rolled her eyes.

My youngest is now two, so she's been listening to the book, too, but she's not very interested in it.

How old were your kids when you told them how babies are made?

[singledad]

LOL - good to hear my DD isn't the only 5-year-old who worships David Attenborough!

I haven't had the talk yet, but I guess I'll have to soon... She's seen animals mating, and I'm pretty sure that she understands that "mating" results in babies, but yeah... We'll have to go into more detail pretty soon. Perhaps I'll check out that book...

[cybele]

Add Lux to the David Attenborough fan club.



I never specifically sat down and talked about the mechanics, there were other things, especially with my old two that we did have very structured conversations about (contraception, STDs and so on) but when they were younger / still with Sash, I just answer the questions as they asked them, and they eventually pieced all those answers together.

[mom2many]

I don't think we have ever had a specific conversation about it. We live on a farm, so they know what mating is. I guess they just put it altogether at some point.

[akmom]

I must have missed that about you, mom2many. What do you raise?

I grew up watching plenty of nature documentaries, and yet I did not piece it together until I started public school in 7th grade. When asked, my mom just said "kissing," and I just never questioned it through all my sheltered homeschooling years. Go figure!

[mom2many]

Originally Posted by akmom

I must have missed that about you, mom2many. What do you raise?

We only raise chickens, but all around us are cows and horses, goats and pigs. We rent a house that sits on some good awful amount of acreage, it's farmed by other people so there is no escaping what animals do naturally lol

[NancyM]

He learned in school. His middle school has a course as a part of Health Class and parents are informed when the class will take place and we get to sing a form saying it's ok with us.
Before that I think we touched on it little by little just answering questions he asked.

I

[jack123]

Its nicer when at the right age it is done in school and it is told to them in a more comfortable environment. They can talk about it as health and science. I think thats the best way kids should know the details.

[parentastic]

During my family counseling degree, I had a specialized course at the university on human sexuality and how to teach sex ed courses. In the course we were about 30 adults, ranging from early 20 to late 40s.

The teacher played a little game of statistics to show us how uninformed people are. I was astonished to find out that, even for adults, even amongst a university crowd, there was still some people who believed in myths related to human sexuality.

For instance, still some people thinking that you can't get pregnant if you are standing, or that coke can be used as a vaginal shower for contraception!

This is to show how critical it is to discuss with children (of course, with details age-appropriate), and especially with teens about sexuality and not assume that they will get it from looking at animals. They may get the gist of it, but the really important things about how to protect against virus transmission or how not to get pregnant, they don't know. They talk amongst themselves and basically, they end up perpetrating these myths and believing in it because nobody told them straight what's what...

One more thing. I learned in that course that the AVERAGE age of first sexual relationship (not intercourse, it includes simple foreplay) in North America is around 12 years old today. That's an AVERAGE. Which means for some children, yes, it happens ever earlier than that. So for most parents, by the time they figure that hey, maybe I should "have the talk", their kids know a LOT MORE than their parents think, and may even have experienced some of it.

So the teacher's advice is, don't wait too much. Better TMI now than not enough info / too late later.

[cybele]

Originally Posted by parentastic

For instance, still some people thinking that you can't get pregnant if you are standing, or that coke can be used as a vaginal shower for contraception!

learned in that course that the AVERAGE age of first sexual relationship (not intercourse, it includes simple foreplay) in North America is around 12 years old today. That's an AVERAGE. Which means for some children, yes, it happens ever earlier than that.

That really doesn't surprise me, sadly. Sunny told me a couple of months back that two kids in her class were caught in the sports cupboard at lunch time trying oral sex. They were dared to, so they did it.

I have to admit, that shocked me at first, especially given that Sunny repeated a grade, so most of the kids in her class are 11, younger than her.

Of course, with us that prompted a conversation about contraception and oral sex. We did it in a slightly 'different' way in that her best friend's mother is also one of my good friends, so they four of us all sat down together to talk about it, but we still got the point across.

It also doesn't surprise me about the adults, I grew up in a very conservative area, all girls school run by Nuns my entire life, sex ed was on your wedding day your mother would tell you "Your husband is going to do things to you tonight and it is your wifely duty to allow him to, just lie back and it will all be over soon" (and mind you, this was in the early-mid 90's we were all getting married, so these ideas were still out there, and occasionally you get a little glimpse into communities that still seem to hold the belief that that is adequate sex ed) and as we were getting older, getting married, having kids I was amazed at some of the ideas my friends from school had about sex. Usually the ones who didn't "rebel" and go off on their own, a particular friend of mine was having trouble conceiving, and we were having a girly talk about it, and she confided in me that they always have sex just before her period, because that is the best time to conceive. They didn't have sex any other time because they believed it to be "immoral" when done for pleasure. She wouldn't believe me, but she did take my advice to talk to a gynaecologist, and now she has 2 teenage sons.

Originally Posted by jack123

Its nicer when at the right age it is done in school and it is told to them in a more comfortable environment. They can talk about it as health and science. I think thats the best way kids should know the details.

I don't believe it is the school's responsibility.

My older kid's school does do sex ed classes, and from what I gather they do it very well, but they can only go so far without at least one parent getting in an uproar, so I do think they tread on the side of caution and don't go into the detail that the lesson really requires.

A perfect example, for a "human development day" last year the years 11's and 12's (Dita was in year 11 then) had a talk with a police officer and a councillor regarding domestic abuse, following that one of the mother's of a year 12 girl tried to get a "rally" going amongst the parents because she disagreed with the fact that her daughter was taught that a wife has a right to say no to her husband. In the year 2011, in a first world country, an individual was arguing that sexual consent should not exist if you are in a relationship. Who would have thought?

So I can completely see why schools don't cover all the required ground, which means that it comes down to the parents to do it.

Personally, I don't want to send my children out in the world uneducated about their own bodies.