talking to boys about consent and sex

[ninvni]

Dc is just about to turn 8 and I have been trying to think about how best to discuss all things like consent, sex and porn with him in the future. I come from a predominately female household, no brothers. Most of my friends have daughters and Ds often plays with girls. So not much experience of talking about this with boys. Any tips of navigating this, how best to approach it and at what age would be great. Feeling rather lost.

A lot of this can come up organically, but the trick is not to shy away when it does. The other side of that trick, is NOT to get complicated, you don't have to have all the conversations at once - answer the question or deal with the issue in front of you in the moment, you don't have to deal with it all today.

I started teaching DS about consent as a toddler. he has always been taller and heavier than his peers so, for example, I vividly remember him bumping into other kids at a softplay on the jumping castle thing and me having to point out to him that he's a lot bigger than his new little friend so actually, he needs to be a bit more careful.

As the children get older, there's natural conversations - no, you don't have to hug that person. No Johnny, you can't stroke Diana's hair if she doesn't like it. Be gentle with the kitty cat, he's only little and he might be scared. etc etc etc.

Re porn, that's harder, but it helps that we weren't shy about having the basic sex conversations relatively young, then quickly established some best practices (consent, condoms etc) which made general chit chat about porn a bit easier. I do worry now that he's a teen and these convos don't come up so organically anymore whether we did enough in the time when we WERE his key source of info but I hope we did. We certainly were a lot more forthcoming that many of his friends' parents.

Thank you. I definitely try to initiate discussions about consent and privacy etc but anything deeper than that hasnt really come up. It just feels like between now and secondary school, I will have to engage a lot more and am just not used to talk about it from the boy's perspective. Having been raised with lots of sisters and cousins, consent and relationship were things that I always approached from a female perspective which is obviously not appropriate here,

I follow a comedian called Mel Moon and she does some great videos with her teenage son about consent etc - they're light-hearted and funny but get the info across.

It's not her original analogy but she does a good one about a cup of tea and she labels the videos as that she makes them so you can send them to your sons and she is the embarrassment then, not you.

Probably for later on once he is old enough to just cringe every time you open your mouth! 😜

I have both sexes. It's been pretty much the same conversation for both - sometimes together. Having said that, they do have books that are aimed at boys and books aimed at girls - so I guess the conversation was steered in slightly different directions. But consent etc is the same conversation for both. And both have looked at each others books.

I recommend having an age appropriate book (and maybe sex focused?) to look through and talk through - loads on Amazon. You can dip in and out, let the conversation happen naturally and go into as much depth as the child is happy with. First read was definitely the high level facts - and that was quite enough for them to process! Second pass, a few months later, looked at things more deeply and they asked more questions. I would start that process by 8 - they talk at school and you need to be slightly ahead of the curve.

As my son got older, (age 12/13 maybe?) I did have "extra" conversations around physical strength and never to forget his strength is likely to surpass that of a women etc. And what to do if his friends were being abusive etc.

And as boyfriends/girlfriends came on the scene, more conversations re consent, nudes, condoms, STD's and whatever else comes up in conversation!

Is your son physically affectionate with you? I started consent discussions with my DS on the basis that he has to ask if he can have a hug, not just assume it's ok...and that just because he wants one doesn't mean I will...and he has to accept that nicely.

He's a bit older than your DS, and that's as far as we've got for now...but it feels like a good starting place for when he gets to puberty and consent means something more serious?

Just show him the tea video!

School will do it many many times

I totally agree with @Iwanttobeafraser . Try to discuss things organically and answer questions but don’t give too much detail if they’re not there yet. We would often chat about things when we were watching tv and issues came up on things we were watching. Car chats can be good too when you haven’t got the awkwardness of eye contact.
I love the cup of tea video. Every time I watch it it gets better!
I think it’s good that you are thinking about these things.

Please do not rely on school entirely. It's not many times. Its a few times, and at very set moments. These are conversations that need to be had in small amounts, regularly, throughout a child's life. Not during embarassing awkward once-yearly sessions with a teacher.

Also, the other thing that's really important is never yto avoid the questions or lie. This makes the school's efforts, where they exist, much more difficult and can really damage your relationship with your son.

Show him the cup of tea consent video. If you google it it’ll come up on youtube.

If he is playing with anyone - especially girls - he should make sure they have given their consent before he takes a toy or joins in their games.

I've seen the tea video when it first came out. Might show it to him at some point. He has lots of friends and obviously gets general social etiquette so thinking more long term, I guess.

I teach PHSE and I must do at least twice with every year group. Every year.