To be surprised DS knows about sexuality?

[Moisdrol]

I was chatting with DS, 7, earlier this afternoon and we were talking about his friends in school and he mentioned that he thinks his friend is a lesbian because he caught her looking at Millie Bobby Brown on Google images twice. I was quite surprised by this because I or DH have never mentioned anything about sexuality before (not that I have a problem with him knowing about LGBT topics). When I asked him why he thought she might be a lesbian he just said because he thinks she has a crush on Millie Bobby Brown. I never knew about sexuality at 7 so I’m really surprised by his peers knowing about it. I’ve also heard kids in his class using bad language which was shocking to me. Is this common??

That book is aimed at teenagers, not 7 year olds.

I think my 5 year old twins and I have had a few conversations since the beginning of Reception (they're Year 1 now) about different types of love, different family set ups etc, which has included same sex marriage and/or partnerships.
It's never been an issue, as (in an age appropriate way), I've always answered any questions they've had about...well, anything.

Teaching British values in schools is the law 🙄

Here, have a read.

@Thedm

FYI

Nothing to do with racism. It is expected that schools embed British Values within the curriculum.

Pupils must be encouraged to regard people of all faiths, races and cultures with respect and tolerance. It is expected that pupils should understand that while different people may hold different views about what is 'right' and 'wrong', all people living in England are subject to its law.

So you can take your racism accusation and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

I spent huge amounts of time supporting students from all cultural, religious and social backgrounds and treat them all with the same respect and tolerance they deserve.

And leading children to believe that gay people make god angry and stop them going to heaven, is aborrant.

How can it be too young to know that some men or women love other men or women? Particularly when there may be kids in the class from a same sex family? Is it too young for those kids to hear about their own family situation in school? Might hearing about it in school negatively affect them in a different way to actually living in their own loving family? You are being ridiculous and bigoted.

@DuplicateUserName

Thank you
Honestly, how is helping a child to understand that they absolutely won't make god angry for being gay, thinly veiled racism.

Why is it stupid? I had a crush on Jason Donovan when I was 8 and was pretty sure I was going to marry him when I grew up. I also had a crush on a boy at school called Toby when I was younger still. Is that not stupid because they were male though?!

Well exactly, the whole thing is aimed at helping with integration and understanding.

I had crushes at a similar age. Had a Busted poster in my room, 'married' one of my friends, (a girl).

Schools can and do talk about different families. Kids talk to each other. It's good that they are being taught about the world around them - if they don't, then that's when they start using 'gay' as an insult and generally harbouring negative connotations, bevause kids think people who are different from them are weird. They can't help it.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual are not bad language or naughty words.

My 8 year old and I had a casual chat this week about a pride parade as he was asking what it was. I explained it was a walk to celebrate pride and he asked if it was related to the pride flag for gay people. When I asked him what gay meant he said "you know, when men marry men and women marry women" as if I was stupid for not knowing what gay was. I like his very relaxed, not fussed attitude about it.
They learned about different type of weddings at school when he was 6. Christian weddings, gay weddings and different cultural weddings. An easy way to introduce relationships that differ from what you see at home.

My son is 7 and their school curriculum was discussing the different types of families in reception or year 1 I believe as he told me at the time and was telling me about how some children have 2 daddies or 2 mummies. I’m not against it in the slightest but it must be part of pshce or something

No I wouldn’t be at all surprised about that.

If my dd8 tells me she has a crush I say no they are your friend. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or girl. Anyone who thinks any different needs to rethink what they are teaching their children.

Sure. Jason Donovan was definitely my friend, not a crush.

I fancied the woman on the magnum adverts when I was about 7/8. That was a crush - I didn’t want her to be my friend.

I doubt, at seven, that he really knows about sexuality in the sense of understanding that people are attracted to some others in a very different way to the way they are attracted to friends.

There is a lot more information around in the classroom, on TV, in life generally about the fact that families and couple aren’t always opposite sex. When you were 7 you probably knew about marriage and playing families and having a mummy and daddy.

When I was that age (over 40 years ago!) we knew that adults of the opposite sex partnered up, but we didn’t really know about sexuality. We didn’t understand desire. I was engaged at 6. To several different boys, it only meant that we played tag in playtime. We may have had some rudimentary understanding of the mechanics of sex (though I think that was a few years later) but we didn’t know what it meant to be sexually attracted. If boys and girls were friends they might have been teased for being boyfriend/girlfriend but seeing adults kissing would still illicit “Urgh” responses.

It sounds like your DS doesn’t really have a proper understanding of sexuality, he just knows that people don’t have to partner up with someone of the opposite sex and that we have different names for people who partner up with the same sex. Given it’s no longer hidden and covered up in schools and media, I don’t think that is particularly surprising.

I work in a primary school and yes, thru get taught about relationships from as early as reception. Not all children have a mummy and daddy, some live with their grandparents or have a carer, some children have two mummies or two daddies. In each class it is very mixed with who they live with and they discuss what pets they have, if they live in a hoise or a flat, if they have a garden or not, siblings or only child, how they travel school. Teachers find alot out easily, but it is for children to understand that everything is normal.

Ds is nr 7 and knows people can marry/love a boy or a girl. Not sure he knows beyond that - he has no real concept of sex/ attraction/sexuality and would have zero idea who millie bobby brown is.

I'm pretty clear on biology though - he knows there has to have been input from both a man & a woman to produce a baby, even if a kid lives with 2 mums or 2 dads.

@avemariiiiiaaaa But surely by wading in when little Muhammed is telling his classmate that their parents will go to hell for being gay is not respecting and tolerating HIS faith? How do you tread that line? I'm thinking in a non-sectarian school you can neither tell Muhammed his views are abhorrent nor reassure young Josie that OF COURSE her daddies will be welcomed into heaven, because that's just putting forward your own personal beliefs.

I'm not being goady, just genuinely interested as to how you or other teachers would handle this situation.

An 8 year old child does not have a crush. They like someone. I liked Kylie Minogue way more than JD.

Maybe learn the actual meaning of the word crush. May help you see the difference between liking someone and being infatuated/fancying.

I wanted to be Kylie but I wanted to marry Jason. As a kid I thought they were both brilliant but I definitely had different kinds of feelings towards both. I'm obviously not saying it was a sexual thing, but fancying, absolutely. You might not have had crushes at that age but I did and others on this thread did. People are different, which is sort of full circle to the original post.

My 7 year old knows more than I do about who is what ! Seems to be a topic at the moment and she asks questions about it non stop

Surely you have talked about different types of families at least. I remember doing so when my daughter was 3 and she asked where the daddy was in a book that was just about a child and mummy. I explained about different types of families (though she was still bloody adamant there should be a daddy in the book!)

I’m in my 30’s and definitely knew that some people were gay by 7. Did you have a particularly conservative upbringing?

A crush was definitely very different to being a friend or liking/admiring someone. I had my first crushes at about 7 and I definitely knew about sex (from classmates) by the time I was in what is now Year 3.