Hi Ladies,

Please share your wisdom, experience and thoughts on this issue...

Our thrid-grader asked me what sex meant about 4 weeks ago. Thinking that he is still very much of a little boy (which he is... he is very innocent and somewhat shielded), we decided that it was not yet time for the big talk. So instead, I had him get his dictionary and we looked up the word and then discussed it for a short little bit... including what it means when people say someone is "sexy" (he asked), keeping it clean and relating it to gender. We thought we had sent that fuzzy beast back into hibernation for a bit longer... until at least 4th grade? please?

... Ha... not so fast, yesterday going through school papers (which we always do together), I found a folded piece of paper in his backpack. As I opened and read its contents, my little guy was visibly uncomfortable, saying... "oh mom, that's nothing..." The paper had a list of names (of his classmates) and then the following words... , "kiss", "marriage", "sex", "pregnant", "baby"... :banghead:

I tried to play it cool, and being very careful not to sound in any way negative, bad, mean, threatening, angry, told him that we will definitely discuss all of those things... But we had to do it a bit later since we had a lot of homework that we needed to get done last night... which was partly true, but the whole truth is... mommy needed to talk this over with daddy, wrap her head around this and figure out a strategy, an approach... and quite frankly, time to get over her shock! Did I mention that we are in the 3rd grade? These are 8-year-olds (and some barely 9-y.-o.s) we're talking about? :banghead:

Hi Sweet,

I will preface this by telling you that I don't have any easy answers for you...but in my humble experience, no matter how shielded your child may be at home, it's not too early to be having the "talk" by grade 3. I don't know anything about the school your child is in, but I strongly suspect it wouldn't matter....kids of that age are curious about it! And if they don't get the straight goods from you (along with your values and beliefs around it), they'll get the info from their peers, TV, societal messages, etc...whether accurate or not.
We had the talk with our first son when he was only five and a half. Yes, in kindergarten!! :laughing:
So, I don't think it's wrong of you to talk to him about it even if he seems too young. I think this kind of issue is way harder on mommies and daddies than it is on the kids!

I tried to search medline on this topic - very difficult to find anything! Everything is about adolescent discussions. I read that your child is at risk of having sex early if he is a preadolescent and is having problems with the police. I am kind of doubting that for your situation

Here is the best science I could find.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2248/is_n129_v33/ai_20740156

my son was curious about "where babies come from" from age 4 (he wasn't in preschool or anything). I found a great book that did the whole egg, sperm,conception and pregnancy thing from fuzzy baby chicks to "people who love each other". It was matter of fact and not sensational and mostly real pictures of families, pregnant women,etc (nothing graphic!). I don't remember the title, but bet you could find it on amazon.

He also came home one time (third grade maybe) and asked "why do men pee in women to make babies?" so there had been some talk at school! Again husb and I both talked with him in a matter of fact way. Someone had suggested to me that you try to let your child set the pace for these discussions, so I would ask if he wanted to know anything more before giving more in depth information. Usually he has only wanted one question answered at a time.

be grateful for the clean words...my son just transitioned from an episcopal school to a private non-christian school and learned THREE curse words in his first month there(S&^%,F%$#, and A@#$#@!). He's ten, but I wish it hadn't happened yet.

Your son sounds delightful to me, probably because he reminds me of my kidlet, who has had a crush on the same girl since kinder garden, but is not precocious in an inappropriate sexual way.

8 seems to be the magic age, or at least it was for all 3 of ours. (I, on the other hand, did not find out what sex was until I was 14!!!!)

On the other hand, you can actually do a kid a disservice by waiting too long. We were of course very reluctant to discuss it with our first, but he actually embarrassed himself (and us) trying to find out the information on his own, at a large family party, no less. Kids will actually give misinformation to naive kids on purpose, just to be funny.

Some funny stories: We finally explained it to #1 Son, and when we finished, he said "I don't think I will ever get married or do that." I said, "But what if I want to be a grandma?" and he said, "Well, if you don't tell A___ and E____ (younger sibs) about this, maybe they will have grandchildren for you."

We gave #2 Son a copy of "Where did I Come From?" when someone at day camp spilled the beans. He read the whole thing, handed it back, and said "Yup, that's pretty much what I thought." and that was the end of the discussion. No questions.

Baby Daughter had already found out about menstruation and ovulation, etc from her GIRL SCOUT HANDBOOK by the time they had "the talk" about that at school. Who knew? That stuff wasn't in MY Girl Scout Handbook.

The 2 mommies and 2 daddies thing came up early for us, because we have a number of gay parents (all women) whose kids attend our community centre's swimming pool, park, etc. My kids haven't asked too much about it, it's more of a "oh, Luke has two mommies" observation, and off they go with whatever they are doing.
I agree with you Path, about the issue not really being a private school versus public school thing. Some of the wildest kids I knew as an adolescent and tween were from private school. And some of the naivest, most sheltered girls that went to nursing school with me went absolutely crazy once they left home and moved into the nurses' residence.

I'm currently pregnant with our second and our 4 year old asked me the other day, "How did the baby get in your belly?" I freaked and didn't know how to explain without being too graphic. I just told him that mommy and daddy love each other and wanted him to have a brother or sister.He said "yeah and you and daddy got married!" So I guess we'll have to finish that conversation later.

Thanks ladies for your support... just reading your words has made me feel much more at ease.

Hubby and I have decided to have *the talk* with our guy on Friday night (least busy night of the week for us)... keeping it simple and honest. It looks like the consensus here in the thread is that it would be a good idea at this point... We are hoping that it will come more easily than we think, since we are normally very open with our kids and we tend to be uber-communicators (for example, no one ever gets in trouble in our household... no chiding, no punishments... we just talk until we figure out what went wrong, how to fix it and how not to do it again... you get the picture... we've been called crazy, but it works like magic for us).

The thing I forgot to mention in my original post was that our guy is completely educated on the male and female anatomy. A museum we frequented in our previous hometown had a permanent exhibit about the human body... no cadavers, just pretty pictures and plastic models...

I'm nervous, but also excited... my little boy is growing up... I will report back after the discussion...