Q-At what age or at what point do you think parents should talk to their children about the “birds and the bees”? Also, were you this open and honest with your children when they were growing up?
A-Sol Gordon, a sex educator, coined a term, which is to be an “askable parent.” I like that term very much because it is not a question of at what age or at what point one should talk to one’s children about how babies are born and conceived and that the penis needs to go inside a vagina in order to make the woman pregnant. The important thing is rather that the child should feel able to ask his or her parents such questions whenever the need arises.
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The other reason that I could not give you an exact age is that several important changes have taken place over the years. One is that children already “know” so much more because of what they see on television. I put the word “know” in quotations because just because they hear about something on a TV sitcom doesn’t mean they really understand it, which is why it is so much more important to be an askable parent these days. (The deadly sexually transmitted diseases that exist now is another, and much sadder, one.)
Another change that has taken place is that girls these days develop secondary sexual characteristics earlier. This means they develop breasts, begin menstruating and are capable of becoming pregnant at a much earlier age. We don’t know exactly why this is-it might be because of better nutrition-but it is something that parents must be aware of. That’s why I wrote “Dr. Ruth Talks To Kids,” which is for children from about the age of 8 through 14.
As to the second part of your question, when my daughter and son were little, I was not yet “Dr. Ruth,” meaning though I had a doctorate in education, I hadn’t yet been trained as a sex therapist so that I was just as uncomfortable discussing these topics as anyone else might be. But I did try and I must have done a good job because some of my children’s friends would come to me with their questions also. The secret is to use a little humor and be as open as you can, trying to show that there is nothing wrong with asking such questions.