Talking about sex with uninterested 10 year old

[parrotonmyshoulder]

I always thought I’d ‘answer their questions as they come up’ in a calm, clear, supportive way. Didn’t think about what happens if your child never asks the questions and now have found us in the position that he’s about to go into Y6 and is entirely naive and uninformed.

Anyone able to give advice here please?

do you know they're uninformed or are they not asking you because they already "know" from their friends? It's probably something you have to raise..

I'd be teaching them more about puberty than sex tbh.
The changes in their body that are imminent etc

I'd probably say something like "there are certain things you'll be learning about in school this year and it'd be a good idea for you to be prepared. Let's talk about periods (or whatever)"

If DC already knows about these things they'll tell you

Just tell him bits in three minute blocks. Sex can be done in about five sentences.

Then another time when your walking together do a bit of puberty, and then another bit another time. And include periods too.

Just talk at him, or he’ll end up with a load of weird ideas from school.

I know he won’t have talked with friends about it. Yes, puberty needs talking about, definitely. He is very small and has some language difficulties so seems very immature. I guess I just didn’t notice the time passing.

Might be a bit embarrassed? I found it a bit cringy when my mum did "the talk"

Yes, short bursts when walking is a good idea.

I'd cover puberty, but leave sex until he asks, or at least for a year or two. I'm not sure there is an urgent need for an uninterested 10 year old to be informed about sex tbh! Maybe buy a book and leave it for him to discover in his own time?

The problem is that at ten his friends will start talking about it and he’ll pick up odd snippets that might be a bit distorted.

They definitely cover sex in RSE at school, so leaving it for a couple more years won’t help. I’d rather he had opportunity to process and ask questions with me first.

Sadly, he’s used to not quite understanding things in general. So would be very easy for him to shrug it all off as another thing everyone else ‘gets’ but he doesn’t. Complicated!

I disagree. I think 10 is very old not to have this information and is in danger of getting very warped messages from picking up bits of information from peers. I am a sex therapist and frequently encounter people with distorted ideas that simple information would have prevented. My 6 year old knows all about sex.

Children who are not neurotypical are often 1 year to 18 months behind their biological ages in terms of their development and interests. It’s super common. Add in language difficulties.
Id start to cover puberty but in small chats. He will ger there. It’s ok to be innocent for a bit longer

I think they cover "how babies are made" (ie sex) in Year 4 so he should know that side of it already.

When I teach Ks 3 (yr7s and 8) about puberty in science this is the basic order we do it in if it helps.

Body changes in males, females and both
So you can start off with how are boys and men different and how are girls and women different. And then you can talk about how / why those changes happen

Male reproductive system
We label diagrams and talk about the function of each part.

Female reproductive system
Again labelling diagram and talk about each part.

Menstrual cycle
Common misconceptions - "I know when girls start their period but when do I?" from boys and also "Why can't they hold it in and just go in the toilet, leaking blood is disgusting". Of course most of us have full control of what goes on with body fluids in that area by 11 so when you think about it the question makes sense.

Gametes
We draw and label the specialised cells and their adaptations for the sperm and egg (this is revision from work earlier in the year). We write about the journey of the sperm cell through the male reproductive system and same for female if the egg is unfertilised

Sexual intercourse
This is done very matter of factly as we are focusing on the science (blood flows to the penis and makes it larger and rigid, it penetrates the vaginas, the couple move and the friction makes the man ejaculated, millions of sperm are released which travel to the egg, only one sperm can break into the egg, the egg is fertilised). There are some fab YouTube videos not showing sex and penetration but the 'great sperm race' which students tend to like. Relationship stuff is done with their PSHE lesson but I always throw in a bit about consent.

Fertilisation and implantation

How a baby develops and what happens at each stage

Infertility, IVF
We don't cover miscarriage or still birth at all but quite often students will ask during this lesson often because it's happened in their families but not really talked about so I address it factually, this is a tricky lesson for alot of students or many will share proudly that they are an IVF baby and what that means

Contraceptives
Different types, benefits and disadvantages

STDs etc are addressed later in their school journey

I literally had the sex talk with my 10yo walking round home bargains yesterday. She doesn’t like talking about these things, I’ve done the puberty talk in short bursts for a while, my 8yo is very informed. I also bought a couple of books, offered to go through them with her, it was a big no but she put them in her school bag and think she’s looked without me knowing. Recently she’s been asking to watch a tv show that’s too old for her, lots of sex talk, we let her watch some of it thinking it would spark questions, it didn’t but when I talked to her yesterday she said she had an idea what sex was from watching the show. I just built on that a little. I didn’t push it, had the conversation when it was just the 2 of us and no one else around. I told her if she had any questions to come to me not her friends, she just shrugged and said fine before changing the subject. I actually think she probably knows more than I think she knows.

I just started reading Dr Ranj's book today so I can start it with 10yo ds at the weekend. He walks away from me every time I try to begin a conversation so I will have to corner him and have somethingto focus on!

(Obviously I'm joking about cornering him, but he does need to go through some of this stuff and his dad isn't very proactive about having the chats).

They probably aren't uninformed, they just don't want to talk about it.

My DS did that. He did sex ed classes in years 3,4,5 & 6. He found the whole topic excruciatingly embarrassing as some small boys do, so he chose to just ignore it, stare out of the window etc. That didn't mean the information wasn't going it, just that he refused to engage. If I raised the topic he'd walk off.

But when he had questions, a couple of years later, he asked.

There will have been age-appropriate education on this right through primary, if you haven’t declined it. There will be more in year six.
You could get him a book?

Any book recommendations?