Why Talk to your Kids about Sex

Understanding sexuality helps children cope better with various life stages (including puberty) and helps them to stand up to peer pressure and make informed decisions. It has been proven that children who are confident in their understanding of sexuality and relationships develop healthier and more stable relationships later in life.

Children need to be taught about sex by a responsible adult so that they will be empowered to make good sexual health decisions and to protect themselves from the media’s lies and glamorization of a serious topic.

Some parents are scared about introducing their children to sex at an early age because they think it will encourage their kids to be promiscuous. But giving them a healthy, biological and emotional background to sex actually empowers them to make good decisions in the future.

Sex education from a reliable, informed and trustworthy source (such as a parent) will be taken more seriously than “hearsay” from a friend or peer.

Every parent struggles to identify the best time to have ‘the talk’ with their child.

• Should we wait for him/her to ask about sex?
• Should we wait for him/her to hit puberty?
• Should it be something that we talk about at all?

But how do you approach the subject? 

The answer is communication – and lots of it. There is no such thing as ‘the talk’. It should be an on-going dialogue between you and your child from an early age. In my opinion, children need to be taught about sex from before they start attending school – otherwise they will be educated on the subject by their peers.