Explaining sex to your kids

Well the time has come* when I need to sit down with my oldest and have a have a little chat with him about sex. I'm a little nervous about doing this, partly cos I know I'm totally going to get the giggles, but mostly cos I'm not sure how much information to give him exactly. He's nine and pretty interested in science and finding out about how things work etc so I think he'll follow the biological side of things if he isn't totally freaked out by it, but I'm a little more unsure of how much stress to place on the ethics and responsibilities that are part of the whole thing.

So... any advice from anyone on this? Who's had to give this chat to their offspring already? How did it go? Did your parents ever have this talk with you? Mine never did and I think it would have been beneficial for me, not just for the basic information which I was pretty clueless about, but also maybe having broached the subject early on, sex wouldn't have seemed to me to be a so much of a taboo subject in our house (not that I wanted to ask my parents for sex tips or anything, ye gods no! though maybe some of you had that too? my friend's mom used to buy him porn for gawdsakes when he was a teenager (he was from rich bohemian german stock, not awkward middle-class anglo))

Sorry if there is already a thread on this btw, I'm sure there must be but I couldn't find one.

*First I came home from work and he was stood on the stairs in the hall thrusting his pelvis backwards and forwards. 'Look at this dad' he said, 'this is humping!'. Haha really now, do you know what humping is my friend? 'Yes, it's when you do this! Btw, the boys in my class say that Mario Balotelli humped his sister'. Err no, I don't think so son and I think maybe we should have a conversation about this sometime soon? A few days later he asked me why we had cut the dogs balls off. Um, about that chat...

isn't there a way for a lot of this talk to occur spontaneously, as a natural give and take? part of an evolving conversation? i've never understood this idea of "the talk", walled off from the rest of life and carried out with pursed lips and uncomfortable shifting around in chairs

like, my son's 4 and i keep having to remind myself that he's not ready for any of this info yet but it's killing me that i can't break shit down for him when he asks

Yeah, I could drip feed him information as things arise, but I kind of feel it would make more sense if he had the whole picture in front of him (metaphorically speaking). But maybe that would be too much to take in one go? But then again how do you explain where the dog's balls have gone without going the whole hog?

Not my kids, but I had to do this with a grade 6 health class (boys only) yesterday. Most quiet, a few thoughtful questions, three or four clowns. With classes where I have a really good rapport, I've started them off by saying "Repeat after me: I have a penis..." That gets their Beavis-and-Buttheadedness out of the way, then we have a good discussion. This year, the objective was just to get through the period. Query from clown #3: "Can it get stuck?"

I think in some ways you have to "wall it off" so that they understand this isn't a topic you just bring up and talk about openly in any old context. otherwise kids are liable to bring it up whenever - in public, with strangers, with younger kids, etc. and there is also the issue of imparting information in a way that is age-appropriate. we have not discussed the mechanics of sex w my 5yo yet, mostly because she hasn't asked (we didn't even get a "where do babies come from" with the recent addition to our family), but also because - as our preschool teacher pointed out - at this stage of their development, little kids will only grasp the most rudimentary mechanics (ie, if you tell a child how the penis goes in the vagina, etc. then the first thing they're going to do is test this out, "I can stick my penis in things?", "I can stick things in my vagina?" you get the idea). This came up in our preschool because there was one dad (who, tbh is a weirdo that I can't stand, and has since left the school anyway) who was all "my dad was a doctor, and I don't see anything wrong with explaining it from a scientific point of view" etc. Dude was so convinced of the rightness of his position that he had begun explaining sex/science to OTHER children, not understanding that it isn't really his perogative to educate other people's children at his own discretion. ugh just thinking about that guy makes me wanna punch things...

The boys in my class say that Mario Balotelli humped his sister: Serie A 2013/14

^ Haha, thread title right there.

Yeah Shakey, those are good points. Our child's obviously a bit older but again I am very much aware that I'll have to explain to him the responsibilities that he has as a holder of this awesome knowledge.

"Don't stick your dick in these holes" etc

i answered questions as they arose in terms that they were ready to understand. also told them they were dead if they made me a grandad before i reached my mid-fifties.

This year, the objective was just to get through the period. Query from clown #3: "Can it get stuck?"

I hope you answered this with a very serious "well, there once was a man from Nantucket..."

pretty sure my parents tried to have me watch this to explain stuff
not very effective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYkmbaYG0iE

t this stage of their development, little kids will only grasp the most rudimentary mechanics (ie, if you tell a child how the penis goes in the vagina, etc. then the first thing they're going to do is test this out, "I can stick my penis in things?", "I can stick things in my vagina?"

oh absolutely

kids are liable to bring it up whenever - in public, with strangers, with younger kids

well yeah! with or without you! mainly without you. sex is possibly the first important thing in your life that is purely yours and not shared with your parents. and by the time you get there, it's like, the last person in the world i want to talk about this stuff to is.. my dad? my mom? i feel like most parents to kids of my generation waited too long to even skirt the subject. just try talking to a 15-year-old about sex. haha blecchhh. it's just wrong!

There's definitely a part of me that wants to get this all out of the way before it all seems like a hugely embarrassing subject for him to talk to me about, but I suppose that schools take over when they hit that sort of self-conscious and semi-parent-loathing age.

ugggghhhhh my mum bought Where Did I Come From and What's Happening To Me, and handed them to me when I was like 10 or 11, right around the time I got my first period

she said let me know if you have any questions, and at the very least you can laugh at the pictures

after I read them I was overwhelmed with the knowledge that there was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to ask Mum about anything in them, it was bad enough knowing that mum and dad had done and possibly were doing those things already

so weird

i have this wildly stereotypical idea of continental europeans as totally at ease with this stuff, trading intergenerational barbs around the dinner table, daughters laughing raucously at something their aunt just said

after they've all had a bottle of wine w dinner, presumably

and a good multigenerational shag

Be age appropriate. If your kid's pretty young then simplify a lot and omit whatever seems overly specific, but don't lie.

If your kid's near to the age of adolescence, then I'd emphasize that as nifty as sex seems when you're on the outside looking in, especially via the glamorizing of the media, the plain truth is that it makes real infants, and even when it doesn't make infants, it is damned volatile stuff you need to work your way up to. Playing with fire is child's play next to playing with sex.

i have this wildly stereotypical idea of continental europeans as totally at ease with this stuff, trading intergenerational barbs around the dinner table, daughters laughing raucously at something their aunt just said

that was so not hans castorp's experience

Its so weird. I dont remember distinctly having "the talk" or anything, tho I do remember a class discussion in late primary school (~10-11 years old) where they at least brought up periods, which at the time was a bit traumatic because - I still cant believe this - the "receptacle" for pads in our shitty old schools girls toilets was a FURNACE. I mean can you imagine.

I do remember sneaking apart the sealed "how does it all work" pages of some biology encyclopedia when i was in my early teens, reading the basic bland descriptions and feeling all funny between the legs and not knowing why, but I dont recall any outright "this is what happens" and me going "ewww" or anything. I think it was more an osmosis thing tbh :/

Dan Savage had an interesting bit of video a few days ago where he was talking about having The Talk with his own son. Went over the biology of it, birds and bees, conception, etc -- and totally forgot to talk about the fact that people have sex for non-procreative reasons. His kid came to him a few days later and said "Wait a minute! You can Terry can't make babies!"

I'm continental european, and I think my parents just gave me a 70's picture book to explain it when I was five. It was called 'when we love' or such, and it said something like that when mom and dad really like each other, they want to be as close as possible... Kindergarten was basically all about showing your genitals to each other in the pillow room. Wasn't it like that for you?