Granted I'm still relatively new to this whole parenting thing. I admit I'm naive and downright clueless about a lot of things. But if there is one area I desperately hope I succeed in, it is that of sex education. And yes, I've started teaching my kids already.
Wait, wait, wait, ....
Now before you freak out! I'm most definitely NOT teaching them about the whole shebang yet! I know my kid are WAY too young for that! But here are some of the things I have discussed with them... and need to again, and again, and again....
1. Our family Doesn't Keep Secrets: I know this rule may sound kinda extreme to some of you, but let me explain. SURPRISES are fine. Christmas, Birthdays, Surprise Parties, etc... but if someone tells my kids a "secret" then they need to tell me ASAP. The main purpose of this rule is to help protect them from sexual abuse. It does have a nice side effect though! If a friend is trying to get one of my kids to brake a rule and "keep it a secret" or "not tell mom and dad" SWOOSH (By the way, that is the red flag going up!) Then they need to tell mom and dad. End of Story.
2. We talk about "Good" touching and "Bad" touching. Good = hugs, pats on the shoulder, etc while Bad = hitting, kicking, and touching of private parts. And about what needs to happen if "Bad" touching happens... aka scream, and run away, tell mom and dad. (since Goober is in school now I need to modify this to include teachers) I usually try to remember to talk to them about this during bath time.
Just tonight I was looking around at all the different blogs I like to check out and jumped on over to Feminist Mormon Housewives... which has a great post on this topic and some great comments to that post as well. If you read the post, PLEASE read the comments. I have linked the post to the words "great post" right above, for those of you who are new to all of this blogging business. :)
I am now going to add a couple of new things to my list of things I need to be teaching my kids RIGHT NOW. And remember, my oldest child is 5 years old. Not very old at all.
The new things are:
Teach that "Bad" touches also shouldn't be done to others. And that if ANYONE (including mom or dad) does a "bad" touch you can also tell Grandma or Grandpa, or a teacher, etc etc.
I also need to be a lot better about privacy with my kids. We are currently working on this. It's been difficult until recently due to the amount of potty training that had been going on. But I think it should be starting to work a lot better now :)
I thought one of the commenter's ideas was wonderful and I plan on using it. On how to teach your children about abusers. I'm going to paraphrase here ... "abuse is a type of bullying. Some bully's hit and kick. Some bully's name call and say bad things. And some bully's touch private parts. All of these bully's want to make you afraid, and in every case you need to tell a grown up (aka mom and dad or a teacher etc etc)." I would hope a trusted grown up is near by when it happens. (cause bullying will happen) But even if you haven't told... even if it happened forever ago. TELL A GROWN UP.
Anyways, as I read the post I thought it was important to remind all of you to continue to educate your kids so that they can be safe. I know I get caught up in the every day things and tend to grow lax once in a while. This was a great reminder for me in this area!
Please remember that even if you think your kids are safe from this sort of thing... so do most parents of abused children until they find out, sometimes years later.
Please let your kids know how much you love them, educate them.
6 comments:
I so agree! It's never to young to arm your child with information that will hopefully make their lives easier. We have discussed this with Riley, too.
Sorry - I meant TOO young. It's still early.
I am totally with you on the secret thing. It has taken some getting used to but we DO NOT keep secrets. Every child can handle certain things and certain ages and if you don't start now they won't know and will be curious and it could be so much worse.
Oh, goodness, this has been gnawing at my mind for awhile, to start teaching this stuff to my kids. Maybe we need to do it for FHE this next week. My dad was so good about teaching us about this stuff. And he gave us a password that, if someone else comes to get us from school, they have to say the password to the kid for the kid to know that it's safe. I don't know if that sentence made sense. And then we practiced getting out of our rooms in case of a fire. He was so good at that. And I have been horrible. I'm glad your post reminded me of what I need to be teaching my kids.
We talk about this pretty often with our kids too. This is a scary world we live in and we can never be too carefull!!!! When Tegen was in kindergarten he kept having accidents (& had been potty trained since he was 2) and his teacher kept getting mad and calling me- we later found out that the janitor hung around outside the bathroom while the kids would go potty so he could go in and clean up messes. Tegen didn't know that and it freaked him out! He thought the guy was trying to see the little kids private parts. Parenting is SO hard!! I would much rather be safe than sorry!!!!
Ugh, I've GOT to start working on this! So many worries and things to do as a parent-I hope I don't damage my kids too badly with the things I do or don't teach them! Ugh...
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