Due to own fears and education, it can happen that often parents and other caregivers avoid approaching sexual education. Also, when children themselves ask questions about intimacy or sex, adults are shocked and scared. How to react, what to answer to a five years old child?
Sexual education is not all about using a condom or the advantages of different positions during sexual intercourse. It is not about preventing STD-s. In fact, it has more to do with the awareness of the own body and the overall development of the children.
Family members and the other caregivers should be aware that sexual education is closely linked to safety of the children and emotional development. When children know who they are, how their body functions, they can easier engage in healthy relationships with their peers and have better chances to function in a clear, structured world. Avoiding sharing this information with them will not prevent them from being hurt, will not prolong the innocence and will only create confusions by leaving the child with unanswered questions. On long term, the trust and the feeling of security of the child may be damaged.
Below there are some general development milestones –from birth to age six:
Zero to three:
Most of the children will:
- Be curious and explore their own body and others’ bodies;
- Experience an erection or vaginal lubrication;
- Touch their genitals for pleasure;
- Talk openly about their bodies;
- Be able to say and understand, when taught, the appropriate names for body parts (head, nose, stomach, penis, vagina – in familiar language etc.)
What Families Need to Do to Raise Sexually Healthy Children
In order that children develop a healthy sexuality, families should:
- Help children feel good about their entire body. Caregivers should name all body parts accurately and convey that the body and its functions are natural and healthy.
- Touch and comfort children often to help them understand love and how it can be shared. Meeting children’s needs also helps them develop trust.
- Help children begin to understand the difference between public and private behaviors and that certain behaviors, such as picking one’s nose or touching one’s genitals, are private ones.
- Teach about anatomical differences between males and females while maintaining that boys and girls are equally special.
- Teach children that they can say no to unwanted touch, regardless of who is attempting to touch them, and that they have a right to be respected when they say no.
- Describe bodily processes, such as pregnancy and birth, in very simple terms.
- Avoid shame and guilt about body parts and functions.
Three to six:
Most children will:
- Experience vaginal lubrication or erection;
- Touch their genitals for pleasure;
- Feel curiosity about everything, and ask about where babies come from and how they were born;
- Feel curiosity about bodies and may play games like doctor;
- Feel sure of their own gender and have the ability to recognize males and females;
- Begin to recognize traditional male and female gender roles and to distinguish these roles by gender;
- Become conscious of their own body, how it appears to others, and how it functions
What Families Need to Do to Raise Sexually Healthy Children
In order that children develop a healthy sexuality, families should:
- Help children understand the concept of privacy and that talk about sexuality is private and occurs at home.
- Teach correct names of the major body parts (internal and external) and their basic functions.
- Explain how babies “get into” the mother’s belly.
- Encourage children to come to them or other trusted adults for information about sexuality.
