Start talking Sex? She just started walking!

When they start talking, you start talking. Yes. That's right. The first impression children receive of something is the one that sticks. And it's really hard to 'undo'. Of course, the content is age appropriate, but it's the beginning of a converstaion that should never end. According to Stanton and Brenna Jones, authors of How & When to Tell Your Kids About Sex, this conversation can't happen soon enough in today's world. Your four-year-old should know that his wee wee has a biological name, and that it is the name God intended for it instead of the lovely four letter nicknames they will hear it called once they hit school age.

Prevention of devasting events in early life is the key to this, of course, and why early childhood developmental programs now discuss themes like 'no touching' in their safety curriculums. Thank goodness they are doing this, but parents need to open their mouths too.

My jaw dropped when this great Christian-based book told me that by age 8, I should have discussed in honest, serious detail what 'intercourse' is with my daughter, and that I should include the real explanation of where babies come from. My heart stopped and I got butterflies. Would I even have the nerve? By God's lovely grace, she walked in and my efforts to hide the book, since she always looks at my book titles, failed, and all my inner voice said to me was, "ok, here goes." So I used the real biological words for our private parts, told her it was important for her to understand it from me rather than stuff she hears at school, and explained it just like Mr. and Mrs. Jones told me to. To a tee. And she looked at me and said, "I don't get it."

Oh boy. I'm stuck. I have no idea what to say and I can't exactly say, "Hold on while I flip to page 43 of my handy dandy notebook." So all I could say was, "Well, you will one day. We'll talk more soon."

I choked! This is hard stuff people!! But it's important. They need to hear it from us first. So these great authors have written a book for the super critical age of 8-11 called What's the Big Deal?, which is the cover photo on this post.

I'm ordering it today.

With statistics like 72 percent of kids today are nonvirgins by senior year of high school, one adolescent pregnancy begins every 35 seconds amounting to to more than 1 million teenage pregnancies each year, and that in 1985, nearly 500,000 abortions were performed on women ages 19 & under (How & When to Tell Your Kids about Sex; Jones, Stan and Brenna), I think every parent in the WORLD needs to buy this book. and then there's STDs, drugs and alcohol, rape, and lifetime emotional effects of teenage sex!

I'm pretty sure that left to the media, entertainment, and planned parenthood, this ugly ball just continues to roll downhill.

That straightened me right out. No more fear in talking with an 8-year old. Just facts. And probably some rosy cheeks and light beads of sweat.