To think that “waiting until they ask” isn’t always the best approach to sex education.

[MyTruthIsOut]

I have a son who is in Year 4 (9 years old) and we had a letter come home from the school last week to say that after the half term the curriculum will include puberty, menstruation and sex education.

My son has never asked me where babies come from, or how they are made, or how they get into mother’s tummy etc….he’s shown zero interest. I have on occasions over the last year or so tried to encourage gentle conversation to try and spark his imagination but he’s not been remotely interested.

He knows about periods as he sees me manage mine and he knows about breasts being for breastfeeding, but that’s the end of his knowledge. He’s simply never asked me about anything.

I know there is a general sense of not having “the talk” with children until they initiate it and start asking questions rather than force the discussion upon them, but I really don’t want my son to go back to school after half term and have this taught to him by his teacher when I would much rather teach him about it myself.

My sister thinks I will just embarrass him if I start talking to him about puberty, sex and pregnancy etc, but I don’t see how it will be any less embarrassing than having to talk about it at school with his teacher and in front of all his friends. I really don’t want him being the clueless one in the class when it comes to something so important.

My husband is on the fence as to how much I say I.e how much detail to go in to. I think he’d rather the teacher deal with it.

I’m really close to my son and we talk lots about many things and he’s always asking me questions about meaningful topics (except babies obviously) so I want to have these talks with him too.

I don’t want to just give him a book and send him off on his way and let the teacher have the ‘awkward’ discussions (as my sister described it).

How has everyone else dealt with this?

Sad but true. My son plays football after school on a local court with boys of all ages ranging from 5 up to 12. It’s just an informal kick-about but they all have great fun.

There’s one lad there who is in my sons year (aged 9/10ish) who has a mobile phone and quite frequently he gets it out and shows the screen to some
of the other boys and says, “Come and look at what this woman is doing, she’s well fit!” and the way the other children respond shows it’s something that visually
makes them uncomfortable. They tend to look at the screen and then instantly back away.

I did speak to the teacher who spoke to the parent, but ultimately as I don’t actually see what images/videos the boy is sharing they can’t act on just my assumptions.

So yes, porn absolutely is flying around at this age and I plan to talk to my son about it over the coming weeks as we
continue to build on what I’m already teaching him. It’s horrifying to think we have to talk about this to our pre-teens but sadly it’s a necessity.

Thank you everyone, and apologies to the OP for hijacking the thread. Respectfully, @pointythings I get what you are saying but maybe they should just teach about wet dreams to boys, my child is a girl and and teaching her about wet dreams is 100% unnecessary and will probably be quite confusing

@Harringtonperle I don't believe in segregating these things. We're never going to understand each other if we can't even talk about the basics of biology. Boys need to learn about periods. Girls need to learn about erections. No taboos are required. The British prudery about sex helps nobody.

And yes, one of mine is a girl.

Boys need to know about periods as it affects daily life and periods will be happening at school. Wet dreams will not (I hope!) be happening at school. Periods are key to human biology. Erections are as well, I agree, but wet dreams definitely are not. There is no relevance to my daughter if a boy in her class has had an orgasm in his sleep

You haven’t hijacked the thread 👍

I suppose it gets difficult though if you only teach the girls about what happens to them and only teach the boys what happens to them because I think it’s important both sexes are aware of what happens to the other. Plus, just as things spread around the classroom, it might confuse a boy if they hear girls talking about periods and ovaries etc and have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about.

And when things aren’t taught equally that’s when mis-information is spread from one sex group to another.

At least if they are all being taught the same topics they are all receiving the same education and information.

For example, my son’s school will be discussing menstruation in the school and they will also be discussing sanitary products. I will teach my son about this before he goes back to school, but I do think boys should be taught about this as part of widening their knowledge and hopefully having more empathy towards girls who start their periods and the stress that comes along with managing it.

I hate the term “wet dream” and I think that’s what make the idea of discussing it seem really inappropriate, but ultimately it’s just the penis ejaculating sperm. It’s no different to when the penis ejaculates sperm during sex.

I will explain to my son that there is one type of ejaculation that happens consciously as a man (when he is awake and having sex) and another type of ejaculation that happens to boys when they are asleep.

I will liken it to bed-wetting in the sense that it is something natural that just occurs during sleep. For example, as the child grows up their bladder is learning how to contain wee during the night, just as the penis is learning how to contain the sperm. And just like how children grow out of weeing during their sleep once the bladder has learned how to function, boys will also grow out of ejaculating whilst they’re asleep once their penis has learned how to function as a man’s penis instead of a boy’s penis.

Okay, it’s not factually correct but I think it will make it easy to explain and easier for my son to understand the concept.

Take the word orgasm out the equation and just refer to it as ejaculation.

Ejaculating is science based and so is easier to talk about.

The word “Orgasm” is associated with sexual pleasure which children do not need to know about at this age. Yes they need to know that sex feels nice and it’s normal for two adults to do have sex, but they do not need to understand about orgasms and climaxing at 9 years of age.

I think @MyTruthIsOut has put it very well, and using the scientific terminology takes the ick factor out of it. I agree matters of sexual pleasure are for an older age group.