To ask how to talk to my children about facts of life?

[Lolabear38]

Quick background ( actually inspired by another thread I’ve seen today). I love my parents and sister but none of us ever, ever talked about sex, puberty, relationships etc. DH family the same. As such, we’re both very reserved and awkward when it comes to talking about any of these things - him way more than me. He won’t even use correct anatomical names for certain body parts (penis, vulva etc). he often skirts around the word or says ‘thing’. We’ve talked about it and he says growing up nobody in the house ever used correct names and it was always v awkward and now as an adult he finds it very difficult and I feel the same.

we have a DD (5) and DS (2) and I don’t want it to be like this in our family. I want it to be normal, feel normal and comfortable and for my children to feel comfortable talking to us about anything - as it should be. I suppose I’m asking for tips or advice on how to do this? As it is now I always try and answer questions using correct words, dressing/ undressing in front of the kids when it naturally happens (even dh does this actually) but I guess I’m wondering how everyone else approaches this? I want my kids to feel like they can talk to me about anything - if they don’t want to that’s fine and I fully expect that they’ll go to friends etc before me maybe but if they want to talk to me about anything I want them to know they can. I learned all about puberty/ sex at school with a lot of misinformation and I’ll like to be able to talk to my own children about this to know that they’re getting the correct info etc.

any tips/ advice gratefully received! My children are quite young but my daughter is already asking questions and I want to set a good example now. Thank you.

Call their body parts by the real names, talk about when they lived in your tummy etc. Answer honestly.

we had this book (I think, definitely one of this series) https://www.amazon.co.uk/About-Babies-Bodies-Families-Friends/dp/1406306061/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=13EBJRGQUKCQL&keywords=lets+talk+about&qid=1673849979&sprefix=lets+talk+about%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-2
and read it with them. It stayed on the shelf and they would randomly take it down to read. It's written in large print, aimed at young children, and a smaller, more detailed print aimed at older children.

Then we got the Usborne what's happening to me books when they were around 8-9.
I've told them they can ask any question they want but I might not answer immediately because I need time to think how best to explain it to them.

Agree with above, call the body parts the correct names, it causes less embarrassment around them. Also have a look at a page called sexpositive_families on Instagram. She gives lots of good advice on how to keep this kind of chat open, age appropriate without forcing it.

I kind of have an “if they’re old enough to ask the question, they’re old enough to get an age appropriate answer” approach to things. So I don’t make things up or avoid questions, I’ll simplify as much as needed. My kids know correct anatomical names for body parts, but also use nicknames interchangeably - I tend not to sweat that too much, they use correct names speaking to health professionals etc.

if you’re not confident some of the kids books mentioned above will help you think of how to talk to your kids about their bodies, sex and sexuality.

Nspcc has lots of research and resources on this