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?

This weird "protecting" thing can backfire. I know of two experiences. One girl was literally sat down specifically to be told about periods completely out of the blue, burst into tears and was inconsolable for a week. Another thought she was bleeding the death when her periods started. This ignorance is damaging.

I told my best friend at school about sex, this was in the mid 1960's. Friend told her parents, who visited my parents, I was mortified and never told best friend anything ever again

Oh dear. If you’re this uptight about sex OP your poor son is going to eventually learn everything he knows about sex from his peers and the internet, which is pretty much the worst case scenario for any young boy.

You are doing him a disservice by heaping the shame your parents inflicted on you about it, onto him. Break the cycle, while you have time.

As for talking to the neighbour, you haven’t provided any context about what was actually said, so to label it ‘inappropriate’ is absolutely ridiculous

Oh dear... the days of 'sitting them down' and telling them about sex in one fell swoop are long gone.

I was born in the 60s and don't ever remember not knowing the facts of life. It was just drip-fed to me in an age appropriate way throughout my childhood. I didn't realise that other kids didn't know!

I distinctly remember a poor girl in our biology class going bright red and almost crying when puberty was discussed in class, she had NO idea about periods. It was awful.
Please don't let this happen to your boy. You've seriously missed the boat for him... and now he's learning (probably incorrectly!) from the next door neighbours kid. Wouldn't it have been so much better if your son had been able to say, yep, I know all this...?

You need to get in quick with your son and make sure he has correct information. And you need to get over your embarrassment and provide him the tools he needs for life.

Just out of curiosity, did he never question why you don't have a penis? And if he did, what did you say?

It really depends what your neighbours son said to your DS? There’s factual explanations and theres graphic explanations which may indeed feel inappropriate. You need to tell us what he said in order for us to know if he went too far and it warrants a trip to his parents.

@BooseysMom YABU. "Innocence" = not knowing about sex sounds a bit creepy to me, almost as if he's now tainted! Innocence is overrated - the more matter of fact you are about sex, the less of an issue it is for children. Your DS is quite old to find out about it. Just chat with him and try not to pass your hang-ups on!

I’m a lot older than most on here, and was no more than 10 when a girl at school told me. It was actually a relief to know, since at 7 or 8 I’d asked my mother how come a neighbour’s son was the absolute spit of his dad, when the baby grew inside the mother? She wouldn’t tell me, so it had puzzled me ever since!

The kid may be a nightmare but I am glad for your son’s sake that he told him. You and your husband don’t sound like the kind of parents who are comfortable discussing this stuff with your child. So this has given you an opportunity. Take it.

I told my kids all the details on a rainy Sunday when they were 8 and 10. We had a book and I answered all their questions. The 8y was far less silly and much more open to questioning and discussion than the 10y old.

Another child of the 60's that knew about sex before the age of 13. I had age appropriate conversations with my children from a young age. You are not protecting them and risk them getting wrong information from other children if you don't give them the facts.

When they were a bit older we had conversations about pornography, consent, contraception.
I want them to make sensible decisions based on facts.
Don't go and speak to the other parents.

Sorry but this made me cringe. ‘Special cuddles’ sounds like the language of child
sexual abuse to me. I know of course that’s not how you intended it but I think it’s a phrase best avoided with kids.

I think I’d have been relieved if the neighbour’s kid had done the job for me. I gave my son a book specially written for children and told him to read it then come back to me if he wanted. He was gobsmacked then just got back to whatever he was doing beforehand. I gave a sigh of relief that was over.

100% agree with this, "special cuddles" makes me heave and leaves kids so open to manipulation by sex offenders - being told what's being done to them is just a 'special cuddle' and not having the knowledge or understanding to know or disclose that it is nothing of the sort.

I think euphemism and simile are best avoided when describing sex to kids, mainly because it needs to be really, REALLY clear that sex isn't 'like' anything they will legitimately experience in their own lives, that it is for adults only. This is critically important.

DS teacher in Year 2 told his class that the teacher was going to be a dad. One of the children asked him how this came about, so he told them. My DS already knew the basics, in an age appropriate way, but I'm still amazed that no parents comianed about a whole class of 6 and 7 year olds being told this by a teacher.

Having said that, I'm amazed that you thought your DS didn't know anything at 9. For me, I wanted to tell him in stages as we went along, so starting with knowing that mum and dad look different when the come out of the shower as a toddler etc. as we have so much more to cover in teenage years than our parents did. My parents never mentions drugs, consent, sexting, social media etc. and getting the basics out of the way at a primary age frees you up the time to have those sort of age appropriate conversations when your child gets a little older.

An article I read the other day said some kids first watch porn at 9, only takes one kid with a phone in school.
My 8 year old and I have started having chats about sex, he asks and I answer honestly . 10 is too late.

Hard lesson to learn. If you don't give the information, someone else will. Count yourself lucky that he seems to have got the real facts and not some ridiculous version off the internet. It is YOUR job to make sure your child is informed.

You left it too late to tell your child!

Honestly I think it's lazy parenting for people to wait til their child is 9/10/11 and just hope that the school or other kids in the playground will do their job for them.

Or worse, leave it too late and then complain that the school or other kids told their child.

A 9 year old should also know what puberty is. Girls of 9 or 10 will be starting their periods.

I’d add, it would have been in the 80s when a friend told me of this conversation after her dd (8) had said (while she was peeling potatoes!), ‘Mum, so and so told me that to get a baby, a man puts his willy inside the lady’s (whatever she called it). Is it true?’

Friend (thinking, Oh, Lord…) ‘Well yes, Sarah*, it is.’
Dd. ‘Oh.’ (Pause). ‘Did you and daddy do that to get me?’
Friend. (Oh Lord again). ‘Well, yes, Sarah, we did.’
Dd. ‘Oh.’ (Very long pause). ’Eeeeurrghh!’
😂
*not her real name.

My nearly 6 yo heavily revised her plans to have 8 babies when she discovered the required steps to obtain them 😂She is now very interested in IVF, adoption and surrogacy (more so the latter two having watched me in the early stages of labour with her sister being sick into a bowl in the car ). I have just told her she's got plenty of time to see how she feels once she's grown up!

How exactly will your frame it? I suspect you feel a bit excited about getting this kid you don’t like into trouble.

My DS told a neighbours kid about sex last year. They were 9. The mum came to my door and breezily asked if she could borrow our book (I had given DC an appropriate book to browse at their leisure after the chat and told them to come to em with any questions). So I handed over the book and we laughed and eye rolled about how fast they’re growing up….etc etc. Unless you’re planning a completely normal interaction like this, don’t go there. Which reminds me, I must get my book back!

Gosh, I think 9 is actually quite late! Some girls are getting their periods before then. Mine asked me when she was 5 (I was pregnant) and I explained it in very technical terms. She was slightly appalled, asked why we'd ever want to do such a thing, and hasn't mentioned it again since (she's 10 now).

745 people have voted YABU to talk to the parents and this is the decision you have come to. What was the point of the thread?

And plant pollination?!! So you've had zero talk with your 9YO son then. Its a part of biology, its a part of human life. To be so precious about it is weird.

He's 9, their in family planning clinics at 12 getting the pill with their boyfriends in their school uniform.

Maybe that's just Redditch though.

This is a good reminder to talk to my 8 year old.

Also OP, please see this thread as your wake up call. Much better he hears the facts from you at age9.

By 13 he could be in a friends bedroom/on a phone on the school bus…looking at porn and learning sex and forming views about body image from that. (And yes, this can and will happen to your kid!)

I think you need to let go of the idea of childhood innocence. It is not very useful.