How much should a 9yr old know about s**?

[Solo2]

My 9 yr old twin sons are about to start Yr 5 where they get sex education for the first time, at school, this year.

I have always been v open and honest with them about sex and wanted them to know as much as what I feel is appropriate about what it's all about, before they get to an age when they're too embarassed to ask, especially as I'm a single mum - so there's no Dad or any other male in their lives who can/ will be talking to them about sex.

I was startled when a friend recently confided that she hasn't yet told her 9 yr old DS how "Daddy's genes" get into Mummy's body. I expected that all parents by this age would have given most of the basic details to their DCs.

Am I mistaken? Might my sons know more than their peers about sex, anatomy, safer sex etc etc and might this then cause problems at school, if they come out with specific or detailed questions, indicating their greater knowledge? Or is the other mum and her son in the minority and will her DS be embarassed to get sex education at school this coming year?

all mine know the in and outs, they have all read mummy laid an egg
they all ask questions and I answer them honestly

they are 10, 5 and 3

at s**.

My 3yr old knows how babies are made.

My 9yr old niece doesn't.

Different people do things differently and I'm sure your children are just on a spectrum between no idea whatsoever and able to draw a laughing sperm complete with jaunty hat and risque speech bubble (a friend's 8yr old ds the other day).

s**?!?!?

I thought you meant shit

my 6yo is already a world authority on shit

I think a 9yo should know pretty much everything about the mechanics of sex really, and a fair bit about relationships and feelings and social conventions around sex

Thanks and yes, it was rather tongue in cheek to write s** in the title really!

It sounds as if there'll be a mix of knowledge and ignorance then amongst 9 yr olds and that my DCs won't stand out as extraordinarily well-informed - that's if they've really taken in all I've said and don't come out with something astonishingly weird!

As they're IVF conceived, they also know the less usual methods of conception too!

"I think a 9yo should know pretty much everything about the mechanics of sex really" - really? I'd expect them to know what goes where, but have little idea about, say, the role of the clitoris. Not sure that I'd expect them to know about masturbation either unless they've hit puberty (or have an elder sibling who has;). I suspect that sex ed at this stages focuses on how babies are made rather.

I've always been open about everything with my daughter, but sex is something that hasn't come up much.

My girl (9) knows little about the subject from me. Whenever I talk to her, ask her what she knows, if she wants to know more, raise a specific topic, she raises her hand and says 'mom...no. That's enough thank you.'. I always end with the speech, 'if you ever want to know about anything, if you hear anything that sounds scary or just plain wrong, just ask me about it'. She just looks mortified with me.

I don't know now whether I should force her to endure the sex talk!

I think I killed the thread :( again :)

i'm with huffy - have been open with ds1 (also 9, about to go into yr5) and answered any questions as they arose, but sex per se hasn't really come up much.

have done a bit about periods. and he sees me naked frequently since nobody in my house believes in any sort of bathroom privacy.

have had to have quite a LOT of conversations about wanking, since he never stops... that started a bit earlier than i'd anticipated!

I had a lengthy slightly heavy conversation on the subject with DD when she was seven, (I think she wanted to know what rape was, so she needed a little bit more detail than I'd given her in the past) and left her with a copy of Mummy Laid an Egg for light relief.

Inevitably she left it on the hall floor, where I found DS (5) reading it, fascinated - he then went to dig out the relevant pages of How Your Body Works to fill in the details. At some point soon he needs a Little Chat with Daddy.

isn't the trick to tell them from really young in whatever terms they understand, then they forget (due to the extreme irrelevance to them of the subject) then they ask again...

DD thinks baby came out of my tummy...but out of my belly button. I'm not sure exactly what she believes about how baby got there...

I said 'daddy did it' and she seemed to take that as a full explanantion.

My 2 (9 and 7) both know how babies are made and how they are born - my older daughter asked about 2 years ago so I told her in simple terms - they both said YUCK! and they would never do THAT with their husband even if they were married.

We had the question about rape last week (it was mentioned on the 6 o'clock news) so we explained it to them and found out taht they had definitely remembered the details of what we'd told them earlier.

I'm from Holland so grew up in an environment with few hangups about talking about sex, and it's standing me in good stead now. The subject is out in the open and so far my girls both seem to feel that they can always ask which is exactly how I want it.

Blinking heck, my 9 year old knows nothing. He knows he grew in my tummy from an egg but that's pretty much it.

My dd is 9 and knows the very basics of baby making. She thinks that the parts just 'touch' to make a baby as I think she is too young to know that graphic stuff such as ejaculation etc. She knows the basics and is happy with that but she does know about periods as I have real trouble with mine and it is mentioned a lot in our house.

She and my other dd can ask me and dh anything anytime and we will answer honestly but her questions have been answered and for now she is not looking for any more information. They will get sex ed this year tho.

My mum sat me down to tell me the mechanics (how babies are made, penis/vagina/sex/eggs and all that jazz) at 7.

Dd is 9 and knows what the mechanics of sex (penis goes in vagina, sperm come out and swim to egg etc)

I haven't explained about 'recreational' sex

DD knows sex makes babies and that it is something grown-ups do when they are in love. She doesn't know the 'ins and outs' though, she is nearly 9 (year 4) and not quite mature enough to cope with the details yet. Others that age might be, however.

Sex ed is starting younger in school from about yr 3, although that is pretty basic - mainly just naming the body parts. It certainly provoked quite a lot of interesting comments from my DS1 (aged 8) He certainly knows lots of the facts of life, for example periods, babies needing cells from both Mummy and Daddy etc. He saw me in labour with DS3 and seconds after giving birth (and probably heard most of the birth!) and breastfeeding. He doesn't yet know the full details of sex, but he's getting closer. I'm letting the details come out gradually rather than all in one go.

my 9yo's aware of a fair amount about his own body, how girls and boys bodies change - and obv how they're different. He uses the correct name for anatomy but finds the word 'penis' hilarious despite it having been introduced well before he was 5, and never with any embarrassment in this household. His younger brother [6] is far more comfortable with his body, regularly has a good pull at his in the bath and proudly invites anyone who'll look when he's made it stand up... I think personality plays a large part in the whole thing. He's been well aware since 4 years old (when I was pg with dc3) how babies are made and how they develop, but not sex per se - he's never realised that he's failed to ask how the mum's egg and the dad's sperm actually get there...

My Ds is also 9 just starting year 5. He has never asked anything.

He knows about DNA and genes. He knows about how the fetus develops and giving birth.

I don't think he knows how the magic mixture from Daddy gets to Mummy.

I just can't face that moment when they look at you with discust and go urghh you did that 3 times.

Another one with a 9 yo about to go into Y5.

DS has never asked, so I've never told him. He's seen animals mating and knows what that's all about and we've discussed heredity (why are there more black cats than white). My sil was when ds matter-of-factly explained what a pair of beetles were doing a couple of years ago, which I found hilarious.

I just can't bring myself to sit down and give him the talk unless he expresses an interest, though.

I don't think it's weird if they've never asked, zapo. Although saying that sil's ds thinks animals are fighting or playing rather than mating, because that's what his mother has told him. I find that weird, but then it didn't even occur to me to lie about it.

Is the role of the clitorous (sp?) actually essential to understanding the mechanics? I mean, woman who had FGM don't have a clitorous at all but they still end up having sex and making babies.

Anyway, I would consider the role of the clitorous to be a detail they get to discover later.

The weirdest rumours go around the playground about sex by the age of 6-7-8yo, so I think 9yo is too late to not have had some straight talk. By then their heads will be full of such strange nonsense that they won't be able to figure out how the truth fits into it all, and easier to reject the truth than believe Fossilised Mum and Dad who can't possibly know what they're talking about we're so old and untrendy.

I certainly want my sons to know something about it before they have sex. And yes, I would include as part of the "mechanics". Wouldn't do so at 9, and I think any attitude which indicates that sex education isn't an ongoing process would be a bit worrying.

I straight talk with my girl when she asks about things. She knows where babies come from, but never showed an interest in how they got there.

I've talked about periods casually...she asked about my 'nappies', I told her they were called sanitary towels and that they were designed to catch the blood I lost every month. After the 'ew' we talked about the fact that it would happen to her and it really wasn't so 'ew' really.

Lately we've talked about boyfriends. I say it's normal to not want one (though some of her friends do) because she's young. But that she'll want a boyfriend at some point and that's fine too.

I offered to do the sex chat with her, said, look, why don't you come and have a chat with me about boys and girls and sex and she said no thanks. And was very vehement about it.

Perhaps I have left it too late but I'll keep trying. If she's not interested, though, I am not going to force it on her.