Amy Lang shows parents books to share with their kids.
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Time To Talk
Time to start the talk in your house? If your child is heading toward age 7, it is! Here are a few books and other resources to get you going:
Books for Parents and Caregivers
Birds + Bees + YOUR Kids – A guide to sharing your beliefs about sexuality, love, and relationships, by Amy Lang, M.A., and Christine Marie Larsen
Books for Kids Ages 3 to 8
What's the Big Secret?, by Laurie Krasny Brown, Ed.D. and Marc Brown It's NOT the Stork, by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies and Families, by Robie Harris It's My Body (Children's Safety & Abuse Prevention), by Lory Freeman and Carol Deach Your Body Belongs to You by Cornelia Spelman and Teri Weidner Books for Kids Ages 8 to 14 The Ask ANYTHING Journal, by Amy Lang What's Happening to Me?, by Peter Mayle It's Perfectly Normal! Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health, by Robie Harris
Classes for Preteens
For Boys Only: The Joys and Challenges of Growing Up; ages 10 to 12; Seattle Children's Hospital; e-mail greatconversations@parenttrust.org or call 206-789-2306
For Girls Only: A Heart-to-Heart Talk on Growing Up; ages 10 to 12; Seattle Children's Hospital; e-mail greatconversations@parenttrust.org or call 206-789-2306
Workshop for Parents
Birds + Bees + Kids 101 (BBK101) For parents of kids ages birth to 9 or who have yet to start the talks. Go to Cwww.birdsandbeesandkids.com/workshops.html
Seattle-based sex educator and author Amy Lang, M.A. makes talking about sex feel like talking about winning the lottery.
“Mom, did you know another name for a penis is a “Peter?”
Yes, yes, I did know that, I sigh. But, since he's mentioned it, I think to myself, I'll add it to the list of euphemisms and code names for genitals that my 11-year-old son seems bent on helping me add to at a rate of about one a week.
Last week it was “wanker:” “That's what they call it in England,” he enthused.
I'm a doula. We talk about babies, perineums and vulvas all the time at my house, but my youngest kid's sudden interest in all things sex tells me it's time for “The Talk,” rather than the random-answers-to-random-questions approach his dad and I have employed.
I may be a quasi-expert on childbirth, but like most parents, I've felt a little lost in terms of when and how to talk to my kids about the birds and the bees that will eventually get them to childbirth – when they, say, move off the island we've sent them to when puberty strikes and return to the mainland around 30.
But one thing I do know: when in doubt, ask an expert.
Which is why I recently met up with Seattle-based sex educator and author Amy Lang, M.A., owner of Birds + Bees + Kids (Cwww.birdsandbeesandkids.com). Lang makes talking about sex feel like talking about winning the lottery – there are a million wonderful things to do, a million awesome ways to have the conversation.
Whatever the teachable moment a parent chooses, Lang stresses that in conversations about sex (and she promotes ongoing smaller ones over the Big Bang sit-down) parents should:
• Be honest, but don't take honesty as an invitation to talk about their own sex life. (“Your kids don't want to know you have sex!” she says.) • Remain open and listen to kids' interests and responses to information, • Not penalize a child for inquisitiveness, • Use anatomically correct words, • Understand what normal, common sexual behavior is in kids at different developmental stages so you a) don't worry or b) know you need to worry, • Not confuse normal human sexuality and childhood exploration with sex, • And place the big kahunas – oral sex and intercourse – in the context of relationships based on parents' values.
Above all, Lang urges parents to be accurate. Don't make up stories about how babies are made or how they get out.
“When parents tell kids things that aren't accurate (like the stork will bring the baby), it is likely kids will learn the truth somewhere else and then they won't trust you,” Lang says. “So if you can't bring yourself to say vagina and penis, at least say sperm and egg and tell your child you'll get to the how at a later time.”
Lang doesn't counsel kids. She doesn't go into health classrooms and make kids roll on the floor with laughter with her fine-tuned since of humor – or take note with her deep sense of respect for kids and her knowledge of the subject.
Instead, she takes her favorite topic (“I LOVE to talk about sex,” she gushes, a wide-eyed grin crossing her face) directly to the source: the people who made the kids who now need to know about sex. Lang works tirelessly to educate parents about the best time and ways to engage young people in this critical health conversation. Her aim, she says, is “to take the sting out of talking to kids” about sexuality, relationships and love.
“What I have found is that parents don't talk to kids because it is hard,” she says. “I know, I've been there with a 3-year-old asking why he's got a penis and his friend doesn't.
“But the bottom line is kids deserve to have parents who know how to do this.” Because in this day and age, she says, “We are not just talking about a potential pregnancy or contracting herpes, you can get AIDS today. And if kids are not educated their chances are higher that they will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18.”
Lang, who has been providing pregnancy, HIV and sexual health counseling since she was 21, says that from her perspective, one of the cornerstones of any conversation about sex with children should be values.
“Really, in this discussion, we are teaching our kids about our values; and the only way they are going to learn our values is if we are talking about them – and believe me there are tons of other sexual values out there for them to pick up. If you want them to pick up yours, you have to open your mouth.”
When it comes to values about sex, parents should ask themselves this question: “A person is ready for sex when … ” And then answer based on the values you ascribe to. That's what to share with your kids in terms of what you hope they, too, will do.
When should conversations about sex start? Lang is quick to answer that question. Honest talk about sex should begin before age 7.
“I am always sneaking it into conversation with younger parents: ‘Hey! You should probably start the conversation sooner than you think!' The truth is, questions about their sexuality and sex is in their consciousness at this age. For example, little kids play with themselves, but you can make a family rule, that this is done in private.”
Rather than talk at a child, she suggests getting a book to read with a school-age kid. High on her list is It's So Amazing! by Robie H. Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley.
“If you sit down with a book and engage them, they won't tune out,” she says.
Kids will inevitably ask “The Question.”
“Do YOU have sex?”
Lang says, even so, “No child really wants to know about their parents' sex life. So you've got to depersonalize the conversations with, ‘Well, what usually happens is … ' Use words like ‘the man and the woman' rather than ‘mommy and daddy.'”
Besides teaching parents the basics about how to talk about the birds and bees, she also wants parents to understand how normal sexuality is expressed in kids at different ages. Showing and looking at private body parts is normal for preschool-age kids, for example; adult-like sexual contact with other children is not. Parents who have suffered abuse in their own lives particularly need this information.
“By learning what's common and what's normal you don't have to spend all your time trying to figure out if something is wrong, or thinking to yourself ‘Oh, no! Not that!'” she says.
With Lang's advice in hand, my son and I have conducted three “bed chats” this week. We climb up on my big comfy bed and I have him dig a question out of a bowl of questions about sex, love and relationships. Then, we chat about whatever he pulls out. I am working hard to identify my values and share them. My son is trying to figure out what the word values means, since they are using it in math class at the moment.
Last night he picked the question: “What is oral sex?”
Oh, boy. That's a long way from his friends Peter and wanker (which Lang informs me is not slang for the ol' weewee but for masturbation!) But there it was, and it turns out he'd heard a few less-than-accurate and demeaning references at school about this subject.
So, I told him what I know, in gentle terms. We talked about how all these things are ways of expressing love when you feel that with a person as an adult. I told him it's important to know your partner is healthy before having any kind of sex and to care deeply about what that person is experiencing.
He shook his head a lot. Then let me know where he is really at with all this:
“Mom, I just love our talks. But, that sounds so GROSS, I'm NEVER doing THAT!”
Maybe he will like the island.
Cheryl Murfin is a Seattle-based freelance writer and mother of two.
