Be honest during sex talks

Four-year-old Fiona heard the explanation from her mom about where her baby brother came from. But she wasn’t too clear on all the details: “So, where is my vagina?” she asked.

Her mom, Norma Dycus of Gallatin, Tenn., sought books on talking to children about sex soon after she learned she was pregnant with her son Gavin because she knew her inquisitive daughter would be asking questions. “She always wants to know how things work,” Dycus says about Fiona, who’s now 7.

Honest answers are best no matter how old a child is, doctors suggest. Being frank now, they say, will help your children feel comfortable talking to you when they’re older. And, giving them the facts early may also protect them from sexually transmitted diseases, early pregnancy, even sexual abuse.

“Don’t let someone else talk to your child, because they will – and you may not like what they’re told,” says Dr. Kimberlee Wyche-Etheridge, a Nashville, Tenn., public health officer.

Talk before teen years

Every year in the United States, 3 million teens – about one in four – contract a sexually transmitted disease. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are more common in people ages 15 to 19 than any other age group, says the American Social Health Association.

“There are sexually active kids at 12, which is always astounding,” says Dr. Lisa Craft, a developmental pediatrician with Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University. Talking to children early about sex does not encourage sexual activity. In fact, it may deter it or at least delay it. Craft says there shouldn’t be one sex talk, but a series of age-appropriate conversations as a child grows up.

“A lot of parents think it’s being covered in the schools, but it isn’t,” she says. “Besides, it’s not a role parents should want to turn completely over to someone else.”

Just the facts

Nicole Deelah of Nashville is a doula and childbirth educator who has five children. She answered her oldest daughter’s questions about sex as soon as she started asking them, which was about age 3. “I’ve had family say, ‘You’re taking away their childhood’ or ‘You’re not allowing them to be children,’ ” she says. “It’s not me that’s taking away their childhood. It’s our culture. We have to be proactive.”

Both Dycus and Deelah say the easiest part of these conversations is about morality and family values. It’s the technical stuff that’s harder. For example, Dycus hasn’t fully explained how the daddy’s sperm gets to mommy’s egg.

Deelah’s already got that technical explanation worked out. But parents will want to impart the dangers of sexual activity and their own beliefs about abstinence. They can – and should – convey to children that sex is a natural part of life.