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?

As much as you don't like how it was done, he really should have the basics by 9 anyway. He will be starting puberty very soon.

School should be a back up, you shouldn't be relying on them to teach your child about sex/relationships. Plant pollination doesn't really have much to do with sex and is too abstract for a 9 year old to link together.

However, now another child has told him you MUST talk with your son and make sure the information he has is right. Who knows what the other child has said. You can't rely on another young child knowing and understanding it. The info could be soooo wrong. I was told that having sex in a telephone box would stop pregnancy because of the wires. Some people thought is was scientific fact because their friend told them who heard it from their brother who was told it by...

I can recommend this book if you don't know where to start:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0763668745?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

We read this book a couple of times between maybe 6 & 9. She was fascinated and really enjoyed it and had lots of questions. Now at 12 she gets embarrassed and doesn't want to talk about sex. Trying to read a book like that with her now would be quite awkward!

So get in there and make sure he has his facts right and knows he can talk to you without embarrassment.

BTW that book is great but has a chapter on HIV/AIDS which I was happy to discuss but I know other parents skipped. It's a bit of an odd thing to include in it tbh but is done sensitively.

OP all children talk about this sort of stuff amongst themselves, it wouldn't even occur to them that it's inappropriate. You can't expect your child to go to school and mix with others without this sort of thing happening.

Do you think it’s ‘inappropriate’ that he’s been given factual information that really should have already come from you. Pollination in plants? Way to confuse a child.

9 is not too young as he needs to know how his body will change, it’s really scary when it’s happens even armed with all the facts. I went through puberty in primary school at 10 years old…just a year older than your son is, so this pearl clutching ‘he’s 9!’ actually means you are a rubbish parent. Do your job fgs!

He really should already have been told all this by you and your husband.
My 8 year old knows exactly what all the parts are called in the reproductive system and the mechanics of how they work. She knows about PIV sex, periods and male anatomy. It’s an important part of safe guarding too. If ANYTHING happens to her, she will know exactly what it is and how to tell someone about it accurately.

I would seriously avoid making a big deal out of it.

It's good he talked to you. You need to keep that communication open. If he sees you getting agitated then he'll view the whole subject as naughty or "something we don't talk about".

Haven't rtft so apologies if you've already said but have you asked your son what he was actually told? Kids can get things very wrong. It's our job to correct any misinformation.

I wonder if you are feeling more miffed because you're not keen on the child. Would you have been more relaxed if it was a lovely child who you felt was a good boy?

Regardless, I personally think it's a little outdated to have this huge emphasis on "the talk". I've always felt answering questions appropriate to age (and instigating casual conversations if a situation presents itself).

That open dialogue has been invaluable for the teenage years and new relationships. All very casual (normally on a drive!) but massively important as they navigate their way through the different stages and emotions.

Infact it has been me talking to my DS throughout and DH said he'd never actually had "the talk" with him. He didn't need to...!

I think what i'm saying is, it's about gradual conversation.

If you close down a conversation or panic, it could make you unapproachable.

I’m also a child of the 70s and really shocked you didn’t find out about sex till you were thirteen. My parents were religious church-goers, but I remember my mum got me a book out the library when I was six ( I used to spend a lot of time in the kids non-fiction and read all the books about ‘making babies’ by the time I was seven). Weirdly, I didn’t l learn about periods until a year later. Just to make you aware OP, I have teenage three sons and the amount of porn consumed by teenage boys is shocking. When one of my DC was in year 7, he came home with tales of his contemporaries watching it on their phones on the bus. I think it’s really important to make sure kids are aware of sex and how it can also be exploitative .

Child of the 70s is rubbish. I'm one and knew about the main mechanics of sex by 5. All my DC's where the same.

I’m a 70s child and we were shown the programme “living and Growing” in p6, so at age 10. I think you were very unusual/sheltered in not knowing till you were 13.
Children need to know in an age appropriate way by the age of 9\10, a lot of kids, girls especially, are starting puberty at that age, amd need to know what’s happening to their bodies and where it’s leading.

If you speak to the neighbour, who then speaks to their child, rightly or wrongly you’re at huge risk of the child taking the mickey out of your son for landing him in trouble.

Gently, you need to get over yourself, this is such a non issue, kids have been telling each other about the facts of life in playgrounds forever

The cat’s out of the bag now. What will be achieved if you go and speak to the parents? Plus, why are you letting your kid play with a ‘twat’?

Don’t make a big deal out of it with him. Just talk, in an age appropriate way, what he knows and ask him if he has any questions.

We have The Boys Guide to Growing up and Dr Ranj’s How to Grow Up. Both excellent.

School did lessons on it last year when my son was 9? I'd already told him before. I started my periods at 9!

9 is the age we were taught about sex.obviously bunnies or something like that . Innocence is all very nice but we need to be aware of our dc finding out like your son has. Maybe have a chat now.

I mean, it’s sort of missing the point, but what does pollination have to do with sex education in school?! They’re completely different subjects, it’s not as if one naturally leads on to the other. Whilst as an adult I can appreciate the link, it’s going to go above the head of an average school child. They should be learning both.

I'm also a child of the 70s and font remember it as an age of innocence at all. Age of sexual innuendo and "rubber johnnies" in the gutter more like. We first did sex education at primary age 7/8 and I already know the basics from my mum by then.

Sounds like your upbringing really messed up your thinking around sex OP. Be careful about passing on your attitudes to your son.

DS1 at age 8 announced on the school run everything he knew about sex to DS2 who was only just 6. DS2 already knew that when a daddy and a mummy love one another they can have a special type of grown up cuddle and the daddy gives the mummy a seed and it meets up with her egg and a baby then grows in the mummy's tummy (or something along those lines). DS1 then announced that the Daddy gives the mummy the seed by putting his penis into the mummy's vagina and the seed then comes out and swims to the egg. DS1 was very proud that he knew this (taught at school). DS2 just had this face [shocked] and said "nooooooo, that's just crazy!" and then proceeded to talk about lego ninjago.

I almost crashed the car.

At age 9 I'm very surprised that your DS didn't know more. It would be absolutely wrong of you to talk to the neighbour when your family/approach is the unusual one.

Another one of these threads. I'm honestly astonished how ignorant people are happy to leave their children, and then to be shocked when something like this inevitably happens!

I think the best thing you can do now is to have a frank discussion with your kid about what exactly the boy next door has told him and correct any inaccuracies/misunderstandings, and provide a bit of human context i.e. emphasis that this is something only grown ups do with other grown ups, the importance of consent, PANTS rule etc. Basically try and catch up with this horse that has already bolted and reign it in with the parental input that you should have already put in long ago.

Seriously 9 years old and all he knew was how plants make other plants?? Neighbour's kid has actually done you a favour starting a conversation you should have begun long ago.

OP this ‘child of the 70s’ stuff is nonsense. My mother was a child of the 50s she told me about puberty, sex & periods by the time I was your sons age… in the 80s

Seriously, educate your child.

This thread cannot be real!

Your DS should have known about sex years ago and you should now be at the point of starting educating him around consent and bodily autonomy, both his own and women's.

He's 9! When would you have told him? I'd be very surprised if school haven't covered sex yet, many girls will be starting periods and lots of children will have been taught about sex at this age in an age appropriate way. You might not have liked the way he found out, but I find your response worrying, what do you expect the other parent to say? I don't get this link with sex education being a loss of innocence...

Are you posting from a century ago, OP? If you want to be precious about who educates your child about sex, then you should have already done it yourself. Which is exactly what I'd tell you if you arrived on my doorstep complaining that your child's innocence had been sullied by factual information.

I think this is how 99.9% of children find out about sex. I remember to this day being in the dinner queue in primary school and a friend telling me the ins and outs of sex. Up to that point I thought it was just naked snogging. I must have been about 9. Definitely don’t go round to your neighbour, that’ll be the most excruciating conversation you’ll ever have.

My son is 9 and attends a Catholic school and has been having sex education lessons. He knows all about it, using the correct words etc. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Times have changed.

Lol. Do let us know how that goes.

9 is old in our area to hear about the basics. All the kids talk at some point & plenty have older siblings. It's perfectly normal. A lot of kids will have been told the full facts by 6/7/8.

Well, if there is some kind of competition for who was born when and what they knew.....

I am a child of the 1950s! So there.

I was teaching in secondary schools in the mid 1970s.

I knew the basics of sex when I was about 9. I can't remember how old I was when I asked my mum stuff but I think it's because I was nosy and wanted to know exactly how a baby was made. She wasn't exactly forthcoming and it was all about 'daddy planting his seed' and I was disgusted that the only way was by taking off their clothes. My best friend and I agreed there was no way we'd ever do that.

Secondary school for me, in the 1960s, gave us a talk on periods when we were 11. The boys had separate talks and on what we never found out.

Fast forward to the 1970s- well, children were very aware then. I had to think on my feet as a teacher and avoid anything that might come across as a double entendre.

So, I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far the other way as some kids are not ready to learn about sex so young, but it's a balance.

Between 9-10 is right, especially for girls as they start puberty earlier.