8 year old asked about sex

[Milkworm44]

8 year old son asked today how the sperm gets to the egg (already knowing that men have sperm women have eggs, he is born via ivf so we have explained that to him always). He thought all children were born with the help of drs and tonight I told him that wasn’t the case and then he asked well how does the sperm get to the egg then? I explained very factually about the penis going into the vagina and we looked at a book which explained all different ways babies can be born but now I’m panicking I’ve said too much. Although I do think if he’s asking then he should now. He was very curious about it asking if children can do this and could he help make a baby now etc. I explained it was something grown ups did and reiterated about private parts etc. I think 8 is an ok age for this right? 🙈

You're confusing innocence with ignorance.

Keeping children ignorant just makes them vulnerable.

You did great. Imo you just treat it like any other biology like how the body makes poo. I've talked about periods and babies age approximately since my girls were tiny.

I remember thinking that about sperm. Also remembering the teacher saying to always always use a condom to prevent getting aids and i asked my mum how on earth you were meant to have a baby if you always had to use a condom to prevent getting aids. My mum said by the time you were ready to make a baby with someone you should know them well enough to know if they had aids or not. Which seemed a very risky method to me!

My ds3 asked me this question loudly in a hospital waiting room full of elderly ladies. I think some of them were disappointed when I said we would talk about it at home!

8 sounds like a normal age for those kinds of questions. It sounds like you answered it calmly and appropriately, so I wouldn’t worry that you said too much.

We’d already read the Lets Talk book about body parts when ds was 6-7ish.

We watched lots of discovery and animal planet programs…..lions, zerbras, elephants etc were at it all the time so he very quickly got the idea 🤣

Don’t be silly.

I answered questions factually for my dc when asked. They started coming from 4 and I just gave the factual answer and no more. It took about a year for him to know all the main points.

We did the same, very factual. But we also did say that they might need to be careful sharing the info with friends. Some other parents in my dd's class are quite restrictive with knowledge about sex and development. They complained to the school that they had mentioned periods to the 8 year olds for example.

Goodness. I mean that’s quite worrying tbh. As I said upthread, there will be one or two girls if not more in most year 5/6 primary classes who have started their periods. Girls and boys aged 8 absolutely need to know what that’s about.

We only had one bathroom when my DC were small so they were used to me using the loo while they were in the bath. "What's that mummy?" I explained. DD: "will that happen to me?" yes. DS2 [kind of excited] "will it happen to me too?" Nope matey sorry.

Sounds like you handled it perfectly