Episode 24: Talking to Our Children About Sexuality – 6 to 9 Years Old

In this episode, we will discuss how we can speak about sexuality to our children when they are about 6 to 9 years of age.

As with our previous episode, allow me to outline a few important principles to guide us in this mission.

1. Continue to build on our marriage so that our children can see, and learn, what true and mature sexual love is meant to be.
2. Continue to affirm them in their innate goodness and beauty, and form them in the virtues and the faith, by word and example.
3. Endeavour to provide an environment that fosters open, honest and loving communication with our kids.
4. Remember always to pray and entrust our children to our Lord.

With these principles undergirding our efforts, let us now outline how we can carry out the chats with our children in this age group.

 

Appropriate Affection

1. At this stage, it is very likely that they will ask about how babies are formed. It is important that we are honest, so that they will continue to come to us for information, and less likely to seek it out from other sources, such as friends, the internet and so on. If we think our child is ready, then we can share about sexual intercourse factually, gently, in a way that they will understand, without appearing awkward or uncomfortable. While carrying out the chats, do remember to always emphasise sexual intercourse as a loving union between husband and wife, always within the context of marriage.

• Do not shy away from showing affection for each other, even, or should I say, especially, in front of your children. I remember when we did that years ago when they were young, they gave a seemingly embarrassed, “Ew… PDA!”
• And we took the opportunity to let them know that such display of affection, reasonable public display of affection, was ok, in fact beautiful, when it is between husband and wife. We knew that even though they appeared embarrassed, they were actually quite pleased within that we continued to love each other and forgive each other despite the many ups and downs they knew we went through at various times of our marriage.

2. Continue to talk to them about inappropriate touching by others, as they may be exposed to sexual abuse from this stage onwards. No one should be seeing or touching their genitals except approved caregivers, doctors and parents in the appropriate setting of care.
3. This is also the stage when some of them may be exposed to pornography. While some surveys have indicated that the average age of first exposure to pornography is between 10 to 12 years of age, it has been estimated that 5 percent or even more of children below the age of nine have been exposed to it. We need to prepare them for this eventuality. In today’s world, it is almost a given.

• Teach them that should they come across pictures of nudity or people who are inappropriately dressed, in any form of media, they should guard their eyes, put these aside and let us know.
• When they do tell us, we are not going to respond with a “You saw what??” or they will never report this to us again. Instead, we seek to understand the circumstances in which this happened, which often is accidental in the first instance, and even traumatic to their young eyes. Tell them that they should “give those persons their privacy” and that the private parts shown should remain private for that person, and not to be seen by others.
• Then let them know we are there to love them, support them, and journey with them, and share with them how they can avoid such exposure in future. It is always important to let them know we are there for them, and with them.
• Of course, setting up filters and accountability software will help a great deal, and we will delve more into this in a later series on managing social media and the internet.

4. Continue to stress the importance of modesty by continuing to encourage them to wear clothes that protect their modesty. Go shopping with them. Let them choose some clothes that they may be keen on. Then discuss with them the merits or otherwise of the clothes they have chosen. Then buy those that both of you like. And then continue to affirm their beauty in these clothes. This affirmation of their innate goodness and beauty, coupled with your unconditional love for them, will make it that much easier to continue cultivating the virtue of modesty as they grow older.
5. Continue to make use of teachable moments when these present themselves, e.g. when watching movies together and certain scenes pop up; reading newspaper articles with them; or observing events and people around us. Once again, these chats do not have to be long. Frequent short talks are the key, not long monologues.

 

Summary

1. Sexual love should always be placed within the context of marital love.
2. Our channels of communication with our children must be open, loving and supportive, so that they know they can come to us whenever they want to, and with whatever they have in mind. And finally,
3. Finally, never forget to pray.

For our reflection at the end of this episode, let us ask ourselves: how can I love my spouse even more, as God loves, that is, in a self-sacrificial way, so that our children can better understand and appreciate that sexual love can find its home only in marital love?

In the next episode, we will share about how we can speak about sexuality with children from about the ages of 10 to 12 years. The journey is going to get more exciting.