DS told us he knows what sex is

[BooseysMom]

I never imagined this scenario. Please tell me if I'm being unreasonable. But also please be gentle. I was a child of the 70s and my mum & dad sat me down one day and told me the ins and outs of sex when I was about 13. It was a very uncomfortable experience tbh. But it seems that the job of telling DS (9) has already been done for us by no other than our neighbour's kid who's 10. Now please tell me if you think this is bad and should I go round and see his parents? Or would you just leave it? DH has told him about the birds and bees which is as far as the school have got. But i can't stop thinking that our DS's innocence has now gone completely thanks to the kid next door, who incidentally is a bit if a twat!
WWYD?

Oh dear, OP. You are in for a bit of a ride ahead. Schools should by the end of KS1 have taught children the right names for body parts, because this is incredibly important if ever there is a safeguarding risk, so that there is no confusion. Next by the end of KS2 they will have been taught, in science, the practicalities of what goes into where and the functions. By KS3 they will be covering the emotional elements... obviously this is a simplification. Children cannot be withdrawn from the explanation during the Science part any more. In fact, several years ago we had a parent who removed a child from this and then asked us to make sure that other children did not discuss this in the playground... errr no, that genie was well and truly out of the bottle.

I went to a Catholic Primary school in the 1960s and we had the films and lessons from what would now be Yrs 5 & 6; you have to realise that in your son's class, girls will already be starting their periods as puberty arrives much earlier now, so better he is prepared than shocked by a natural process his classmates are going through. Even 50 yrs on I can remember the names of the three girls who started in Yr 6...

As to talking to you neighbours, no it is not an inappropriate conversation but I think it might have been inappropriate for you not to have prepared your son.

My son was labelling body parts at school last year aged 9 including the clitoris so unless your school is very special I suspect that they're past plant pollination!

It's very common for children to hear about things from other children. The other child is a child too and I don't think they've done anything wrong. It's not like they've introduced him to porn or something.

Gosh lucky your DC never met mine! He told everyone about sex and Santa in year one.

I was 8 in 1963 when a boy called John Smith (really!) told me the mechanics of how babies were "made" when we were in the playground. I refused to believe him, it seemed like such an utterly ridiculous thing to do.

On they way home from school, I told my mum what this silly boy had said, and she confirmed that his description was correct, but that it was a bit more complicated than that. Then I got given a book that explained things in more detail, and being an avid reader and given to looking things up for myself, I then looked up some of the more technical bits in a Black's Medical Dictionary published in the early 50s, and found it most interesting.

I also recall asking how on earth all those eggs resided in my tummy, and DM telling me that human eggs were really tiny, unlike hens' eggs. How she kept a straight face, I have no idea. She used to be a nurse though, so was pretty comfortable with that sort of stuff.

She certainly wouldn't have dreamed of discussing it with John Smith's parents!

@BooseysMom you are massively overreacting and you will teach your child to never talk to you about any of these issues. If I had a 9 year old, I’d be jumping for joy that their first instinct when told something new like this was to come to me. For goodness sake don’t ruin that.

You are also being wildly unfair to the other child who is doing exactly what children do. They talk about this stuff. Don’t be that mum.

I'm really worried for you and your son if you literally think that “pollination” is the level of sex education appropriate at an age when some kids will be starting puberty.

🤣🤣🤣

Separately, or…?

I'm going to assume that you're not in the UK. At age 9/10 here they do sex education including penetration, masturbation, erections, periods etc

Yabu not to have taught this to your son yourself. If you had complained to me about your kids finding out from mine at this age I would have looked at you like this 🤨

Knowing about sex doesn't ruin childhoods. Now is a good time to educate him because teenagers won't listen as they know everything 😉 plus you risk him being educated by the Internet which is much worse and harmful.

Get him a book like the Usborne "What's happening to me ?" Which will be age appropriate

I can't believe that your parents didn't tell you until age 13! There are girls in primary school age 9/10 who get periods. My kids knew what a period was by age 3 because they were interested in my tampons and this stopped them wanting to play with it

I truly believe that telling children about sex when they are very small does not "take away their innocence" in any way. I too was taught about sex when I was 13. I was thoroughly traumatised by the fact that my parents had done such a thing. My grandchildren have known about sex since they were very small, because their parents have been very matter of fact about it being another natural part of life. They have provided books and answered questions. None of the children think of sex as a taboo subject...and neither should they.

The average age for boys in the UK to have seen porn is 8. Child on child sexual assault is the fastest growing category of sex crime.
You better get talking about privacy, boundaries, consent, respect and real life. And porn.
For the record, I mean how very damaging and dangerous porn is. It is a public health crisis and causes great harm.

I was a 90s child found out at maybe age 6/7 from my mum that babies are made when a man puts his penis in a woman's vagina. I didn't know until sex Ed at age 11 that people had sex for pleasure, condoms existed, etc - I thought sex = baby and that was it! But I really don't think there's any harm in learning about it from an early age, it certainly did me no harm.

"Pollination in plants"??

What on earth do you think is to be gained from keeping a child ignorant of the realities of sex? Of course there are language and context choices that must be appropriate, but explaining the actual reality of sex and what can result from it has nothing to do with innocence, nor will it cause a child any harm. In my opinion, the earlier children learn about these things the better, because knowledge is power and equips children to have an understanding of their own bodies, understanding of right and wrong in terms of their own boundaries and bodies, and the ability to make informed choices. And yes, I believe this is applicable at all ages. Shrouding sex in a cloak of mystery does absolutely nothing to protect or empower a child.

Absolutely this. Free conversation between children and then subsequent communication to parents should never be penalised and discouraged. The worst outcome of this is that OP's child begins to think they shouldn't come to OP when something "taboo" has been discussed with them.

What did you say and in what steps?

I have a 5 yr old, she's at school with lots of kids with older siblings, I want her informed in a healthy way.

The school friend when I was 7 actually said 'Your mum and dad put their cocks together and that makes a baby'. I already knew that mums didn't have 'cocks', so I asked a slightly older friend, and she clarified for me and showed me a book she had come across.. Much much earlier when i was about 2 (I was a very early talker) I asked my mother where i came from. She said 'you grew inside my tummy'. I then asked what seemed the obvious next question, 'How did I get out of there?' My mother said 'The doctors opened me up'. I can still perfectly recall the mental image this produced. My mother, split horizontally around the middle, with two brass hinges on her back (presumably for this purpose), being opened up like a suitcase, her top half bent back, and a little doll-like Loy being lifted out, fully dressed and wearing her glasses. Then they shut my mother back up with a snap and a click and all was good. Another time I heard mention of 'adultery' and asked my mother what it was. She said, after a pause, that it was 'when a grown up marries someone when they are already married to someone else'. I knew that the right name for that was 'bigamy', but something about her tone suggested that I had maybe better not say that.

Leaving all else aside, the reality is girls of his age in particular need to have at the very least the basic facts of life because its not at all unusual to start periods around age 10 now (not saying that boys dont also need the information, but girls in particular need preparing) . So there were always going to be children of his age that had this information and being that age they share it.
If you want the first conversations about sex, sexuality, porn etc to first come from you you need to start these conversations much earlier because also his peers will have older siblings or the curiosity to go googling or to ask their parents questions that are answered factually.
For now id focus on finding out exactly what the child has told him, clear up and misinformation and prepare for further conversations on these topics so you arent caught by surprise. I was always hapoy to answee questions factually but my DD never asked anything about 'how babies get into your tummy' etc bar a chat about periods after she saw an ad on tv. At age 7 she decided to ask me 'whats sex' as we stood at a busy bus stop!

When I was 9 I was taken aback to realise that the Queen must had sex four times!

That's how I felt about my parents!!!

They do learn early now. I have my 7 year old niece live with me. She wanted to stay up and watch a series I was going to watch and I said no, it's not suitable for you, you're too young.

She gave this massive sigh and said to me 'Is this about sex?' I was a bit gobsmacked and said 'Yeah... and it's too violent.'

She replied 'I DO know what sex is, auntie big, I go to school, you know. They told us ages ago how you make babies. The fighting isn't real either, it's all pretend, like pokemon but with real people.' All said in a very patronising tone as though explaining it to an idiot. 😆

I think a-lot of kids learn like that but some might not mention it to parents. I know I was told by other kids before my parents sat me down. I'm a kid from the 90s

First time, and will probably be the only time, I’ve seen ‘the birds and the bees’ literally mean the birds and the bees. On a thread about sex education, no less.

Amazing. Tbh I’m surprised he wasn’t enlightened by a classmate before now.

I don’t see how basic knowledge of biology is ‘destruction of innocence’, or why, if it is, what is basically ignorance is being lauded as a more desirable state of being.

No he isn't! He's 9. I don't think he's old enough yet.

Your son should absolutely understand, at the age of 9, what puberty is. Apart from the fact that he should know about his own body and development, please don't let your son be that boy who doesn't understand what periods are or why some of the girls in his class might be self-conscious about their chest. Plenty of girls start their periods or feel they need a bra around the age of 10. Plenty of boys, and girls, start to need deodorant at around your son's age too. He's not a baby.

Kids should know what puberty is BEFORE it happens to them. Otherwise they don't have a clue what's going on when it happens, and the lack of knowledge makes the whole thing scary and weird. Don't let your kid be the one who thinks he's got something horrifically wrong with him when he has his first wet dream, FFS.

It was ever thus. Just that in recent decades, IMHO, many parents seem to think they can wrap their kids in cotton wool.

I started puberty at 9 (well, nearly 10) and so did my male cousin. It's perfectly normal for puberty to begin at any point between the ages of 8 and 13 in girls and 9 and 14 in boys.