Child sex Ed?

  • Thread starter Thread starter HomeEdMom
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

HomeEdMom

Guest
As a Catholic homeschooling mom, I am always searching for how best to teach my children.
Now I am facing a new challenge…Sex Education. I did not grow up Catholic so I have no model. My biggest stalling point? My 8 year old daughter has been “discovering” herself. Do I address this? How? Are there any resources? I would love to teach her Theology of the body, but everything I have found is geared towards older kids. Any help would be great!
 
Congrats home schooling mom! I home schooled the last 2 of our 5 kids–all now grown up-- for several years apiece. In retrospect, I wish I had home schooled all 5 and began in kindergarten with each of them. What a tough task, but aren’t the rewards wonderful? Here is how I would approach this in a nutshell: I would do exactly what I would do if I were not home schooling and my child asked me a question about his or her body or sex in general. To me, one of the big drawbacks of public education today is that they are constantly trying to involve the state in things that should be left to parents. By home schooling, you are lucky as you don’t have to deal with some teacher, with an agenda of his or her own, teaching your child how to masturbate or put a condom on in 3rd grade. I don’t know how old your children are, but if I decided to bring sex up as part of the learning process in your class, I would do so at exactly the same level as you would do if the child came to you and asked “Mama, how do babies get in a woman’s tummy?” Even 5 or 6 year olds should begin to learn the correct names for their sexual body parts and understand that these parts aren’t any dirtier than their hand or nose. It would be a good time to explain to a younger child, that his or her sexual parts are a gift from God with a purpose and that nobody should try to touch them against the child’s will. All children explore their bodies as a natural curiosity and part of growing up, I would certainly take the opportunity–especially since your child is demonstrating this curiosity-- to explain that it’s not appropriate to "“play” with parts of the body which were given to us for a purpose when we are old enough to marry. If the child is female and perhaps 10 or 11, you probably should be sure that she understands the menstrual cycle. In their teens, it’s important that they understand more details about sexual intercourse–and this is a great time to instill value-based learning on things like artificial contraception, abortion and the importance of chastity in the single and dating life. There are a number of good books with pictures and diagrams of the human body that can help you to explain how ovulation, fertilization and such happen. I happen to be a nurse midwife, so when my 2 daughters reached about 15 or 16, they each had to accompany me to the delivery of a baby. My older daughter was shown a real 12 week fetus in a bucket of formalin that a woman had sadly miscarried earlier in my shift. Seeing that little baby fit right in with my explaining both fetal development and why abortion is the taking of a life. You have an amazing opportunity to not only teach your children how to read and add, but to prevent said child from being over introduced to secular ideas that you may not approve of as a Catholic Christian. Have fun with it and be creative would be my advice!👍
 
Starrrsmother, I have to ask…is your child named Starr? My mother gave us all nifty middle names. My sisters middle name is Star. My brother named his daughter after my sister, but added an extra r. Her name is Starr!

Anyways, I think the advice you gave was wonderful. I did not homeschool my kids, but I did make sure to teach them about their bodies and sexuality before the school system had a chance to possible mess it up. The only thing I disagree with is waiting until 10-11 to explain the menstrual cycle to girls. It’s my understanding that girls typically begin menstruating earlier than in generations past. I begin right after my 10th birthday. Both of my daughters and most of their friends had their first cycle between 9 and 11 years old. So, I’d advise discussing it a year or so sooner in case the girl in question is also an early bloomer.
 
Visit www.chastity.org and onemoresoul.com for resources.

American Girl has a book that is highly recommended, The Care and Keeping of You.

Contact your family life office at your diocese and see if they offer any mother/daughter programs, ours does.
 
MJJean said:
Starrrsmother, I have to ask…is your child named Starr? My mother gave us all nifty middle names. My sisters middle name is Star. My brother named his daughter after my sister, but added an extra r. Her name is Starr!

Anyways, I think the advice you gave was wonderful. I did not homeschool my kids, but I did make sure to teach them about their bodies and sexuality before the school system had a chance to possible mess it up. The only thing I disagree with is waiting until 10-11 to explain the menstrual cycle to girls. It’s my understanding that girls typically begin menstruating earlier than in generations past. I begin right after my 10th birthday. Both of my daughters and most of their friends had their first cycle between 9 and 11 years old. So, I’d advise discussing it a year or so sooner in case the girl in question is also an early bloomer.
Click to expand...
Yep–my youngest daughter is named Starr Marie 👍
 
Thank you for your posts, I hope to get more. Starr(name removed by moderator), you are right on about countering the potential for secularism. My sensitivity is that I don’t want my daughter to find sexuality to be anything other than what our Lord intended. I don’t want her to think its all in fun, but I don’t want her to feel ashamed later either. I feel I am on a cusp. I like the idea of telling her that it is not appropriate to play or misuse her body. MJJean, I started my cycle early, too. I had no idea what was going on and my neighbors mom had to give me a pad! I still feel embarrassed! My daughter is 8. I will wait just a little bit, I think, but maybe not. It will depend on conversation. My biggest concern is how to approach the masturbation issue. I don’t want her to develop habits but I don’t want her to think she is bad either. Thank you, 1ke for the resources! I will check them out. I want to be armed and ready for this one. I have an older boy, and he was/ is so easy. I was not prepared for this yet!
 
HomeEdMom said:
Thank you for your posts, I hope to get more. Starr(name removed by moderator), you are right on about countering the potential for secularism. My sensitivity is that I don’t want my daughter to find sexuality to be anything other than what our Lord intended. I don’t want her to think its all in fun, but I don’t want her to feel ashamed later either. I feel I am on a cusp. I like the idea of telling her that it is not appropriate to play or misuse her body. MJJean, I started my cycle early, too. I had no idea what was going on and my neighbors mom had to give me a pad! I still feel embarrassed! My daughter is 8. I will wait just a little bit, I think, but maybe not. It will depend on conversation. My biggest concern is how to approach the masturbation issue. I don’t want her to develop habits but I don’t want her to think she is bad either. Thank you, 1ke for the resources! I will check them out. I want to be armed and ready for this one. I have an older boy, and he was/ is so easy. I was not prepared for this yet!
Click to expand...
Maybe try having an all inclusive talk? Begin with menstruation and how it relates to human reproduction, add in God’s plan for human sexuality, explain why masturbation is wrong even though the urges are common and must be resisted, and then have a question and answer session.

And none of us are ready, lol. I was pregnant with my 2nd child when my oldest, 5 at the time, decided to randomly ask how the baby got to be in my tummy. I was driving at the time and nearly wrecked the car! I gave her the “when a married couple love each other they spend special alone time together and…” talk. Bought myself a couple years before she wanted the details.
 
I really love the name. Our 2 girls are “book ends”–with 3 boys in between. They are 17 years apart in age. My oldest girl is Shea Marie and my youngest is Starr Marie. They have the same initials. I realized they were far too apart in age to share a lot of things sisters do who are only a few years apart in age—but I tried to give them a tie!
 
Starrsmother said:
I really love the name. Our 2 girls are “book ends”–with 3 boys in between. They are 17 years apart in age. My oldest girl is Shea Marie and my youngest is Starr Marie. They have the same initials. I realized they were far too apart in age to share a lot of things sisters do who are only a few years apart in age—but I tried to give them a tie!
Click to expand...
Giving them a tie was a nice touch!

I am the oldest. 8 years between me and my sister and 10 years between me and my brother. I think our tie had a lot to do with changing diapers and going to school smelling like spit-up, lol. My mom was disabled and I was her assistant, so to speak. I did the physical work, she gave me instructions.

I named my eldest Dorothy Josephine after my mom’s birth and adoptive mothers. I wanted her to have a tie to the women who had gone before. I named my middle child Shana Michael (pronounced Michelle) after her father (my ex-husband). My son I named Duncan after a favorite character in a sci-fi series of books my husband and I were both reading while I was pregnant.

Not to totally derail the thread, I’ll get back on topic 🙂

When my siblings started asking questions our dad was at work and my mom totally choked. So, I ended up being the one to explain things to them. I decided to explain puberty and sexuality to both of them together so they would understand what the opposite sex goes through.

It went very well until I got to the part about morning erections and why they happen, wet dreams, and masturbation. My brother was engrossed and very happy to understand some of what was happening to him. My sister sat in a nearby chair blushing scarlet and giggling like a loon.
 
I laughed when I read your post! Great story. My mom had trouble talking the “sex talk” with me too–but I’m 62 and I think it was a generational thing. I talked to all my kids–explained both the girl stuff to my girls and boys both (so they’d know) and vise versa with the boys. I tried to keep it a “no big deal–it’s just nature” type thing… With my girls, I talked to them about body parts, not letting anyone mishandle them and so on, from the time that they were 2 or 3–though at a young age I kept it on a really simple basis. I sort of waited for the menstruation-having sex part until I saw that they were developing. Girls don’t usually have their first period until they at least begin to develop a little. It never embarrassed me–I just believed that sometimes you get into overkill telling a whole lot of detail too early. If they questioned me about something, I gave a straight answer, but none of mine seemed to ask more than the simple stuff–until they were at least 9 or 10. If they had not have asked about periods, for example,by that time and I saw that they were developing, I’d have set them down and broke the news! I never really grasped why women of my mother’s age found the issue so hard to speak about. I mean, it happens to all women. BUT, when I was growing up, a lot of girls found out the hard way-- by starting their first period and, by not knowing what it was, they thought they were badly hurt inside and dying or something. If I thought mine wanted or needed to know even at age 6, I would have stepped up and told them. Both my girls had their first period around age 12 or 13 though–and started getting little breast buds and so on maybe about a year earlier. So, I just kinda looked for the signs and talked when I saw them 😃
MJJean said:
Giving them a tie was a nice touch!

I am the oldest. 8 years between me and my sister and 10 years between me and my brother. I think our tie had a lot to do with changing diapers and going to school smelling like spit-up, lol. My mom was disabled and I was her assistant, so to speak. I did the physical work, she gave me instructions.

I named my eldest Dorothy Josephine after my mom’s birth and adoptive mothers. I wanted her to have a tie to the women who had gone before. I named my middle child Shana Michael (pronounced Michelle) after her father (my ex-husband). My son I named Duncan after a favorite character in a sci-fi series of books my husband and I were both reading while I was pregnant.

Not to totally derail the thread, I’ll get back on topic 🙂

When my siblings started asking questions our dad was at work and my mom totally choked. So, I ended up being the one to explain things to them. I decided to explain puberty and sexuality to both of them together so they would understand what the opposite sex goes through.

It went very well until I got to the part about morning erections and why they happen, wet dreams, and masturbation. My brother was engrossed and very happy to understand some of what was happening to him. My sister sat in a nearby chair blushing scarlet and giggling like a loon.
Click to expand...
 
I also suggest reading the document The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality by the Pontifical Council on the Family, it is online and you can google it.

Another resource is Beyond the Birds and the Bees, by Dr. Gregory Popcak

And Mary Beth Bonacci’s site RealLove.net has resources too.
 
St. Francis Books (www.stfrancisbooks.com) has a lovely set of books, one for fathers and sons, the other for mothers and daughters. They are called “Listen, Son”, and “Mother’s Little Helper”, respectively. My mother has bought the one for boys, and I have skim-read it. It looks quite good. I’m going to buy the one for girls for my stepdaughter this year. It has talks for girls as young as 9.

In terms of menstruation, I’d recommend talking to her about it sooner rather than later. We are seeing menstruation occurring at an earlier age these days - we have observed it in girls as young as 8, and the “normal” age is from 10-16.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top