021: Talk Sex Today!

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Transcript Jen:    [00:30] Hello and welcome to Your Parenting Mojo. We have a fabulous guest lined up today and we’re going to talk about sex. No, not sex for you. I assume you probably figured that part out already by now, especially since you’re listening to a podcast for parents, but about your children and sex. So I was scrolling down my Facebook feed recently when I saw a post in a parenting group saying my two year old daughter seems to have a “special relationship,”with her rocking horse is she masturbating? And I thought to myself, Whoa, two year olds masturbate. I got to do an episode on this. So I looked around to see who’s writing about this and I found Saleema Noon, who has a master’s degree in Sexual Health Education and has been teaching the fields of sexual health, assertiveness, internet safety, healthy relationships and body image for a decade now. She co-wrote the recent books talk sex today, what kids need to know and how adults can teach them, which is absolutely chock full of information on how to talk with children of all ages about sex. And the book is so awesome that I knew I had to invite her on the show to help us understand what we should consider discussing with our toddlers and preschoolers about sex and sexuality and why we should do this as well. Welcome Saleema. Saleema:       [01:36] Hi. Thanks for having me. Jen:  [01:38] So can you tell us a bit about why you think we should start talking even with really young children about sexuality? What’s our overall goal here? Why are we doing this? Saleema:    [01:46] Well, the goal is to keep our kids educated and therefore protected and safe. I tell parents that there are three main reasons why we need start talking to our children early about sexual health and they all have to do with protection and prevention. The first one is that young children are easiest to teach because they haven’t learned yet that sexual health is still a taboo subject in our society. So for example, when we explained to even young children how babies are made or what their body parts are called using scientific language, they’re excited to learn about that stuff. They don’t have any emotional baggage around the topic, just like, older children and teenagers and even some adults have. So they’re really curious. Body scientists, we call them and they’re excited to learn everything they can about the topic. By the time they get to grade four or five, however we call these people that gross-me-out-ers because now they’ve learned they should be totally disgusted by anything to do with sex or sexual health or bodies. Saleema:  [02:48] You know. So the whole idea is for parents to teach their kids early, even before questions start coming up to capitalize on their natural curiosity and matter of fact nature in learning the information. The second reason why we as parents need to start talking about sexual health with our young children as early as possible is that our kids are exposed to so much to do with sexuality at younger and younger ages, even as toddlersi believe it or not. And so we always need to stay one step ahead of the game with accurate information so that our kids know how to interpret what they hear. They can think critically about it and if they hear something that doesn’t make sense to them or as upsetting or disturbing to them even they can come and ask us about it. We as parents want to be our kids’ number one source of sexual health information. Saleema:   [03:40] And the third reason why we need to start talking from an early age, I think is most important, and that is that studies from all over the world consistently show us that children who are educated about healthy bodies and healthy sexuality are protected from child sexual abuse. Children need information to keep themselves out of exploitative situations. And so when parents ask me, you know, when do I start teaching? Well, I have jokingly tell them the day your child is born by using technical terminology, you know, um, they can learn words like vagina and vulva just as easily as they learn any other word, you know, they’re like little sponges. And we have to be accurate too. For example, when a young child is in the bath, we’re not washing the vagina, the vagina does not need to be washed. It’s an opening. But what needs to be washed is the vulva. Saleema:  [04:31] And even seemingly small distinctions like this are important because if a child is abused and needs to report to a parent or in a court setting, God forbid, they need to have appropriate vocabulary so they can be very clear in exactly what they’re trying to express. Lots of research has been done talking to child predators and what they tell us is that they spend a lot of time grooming their victims, most have been abused themselves so they know exactly what to look for and what they say time and time again is that a child who is educated and knowledgeable and aware about sexual health at any age has probably been taught by a parent or another reliable adult and has also been taught to report should something exploitative happen. On the other hand, a child who doesn’t know anything, doesn’t have the vocabulary, doesn’t have that awareness, probably hasn’t been taught either and won’t report or at least will be less likely to report and therefore is an easier target. So teaching our kids even as toddlers using technical terminology and as they reach the preschool years, answering questions as they come up is really key from a safety perspective. Jen:    [05:46] Yeah. Yeah. We’re not going to dig too deep in the safety perspective. But before we move on, I just wanted to mention something, I can’t remember if I heard this in your book or read it somewhere else. I remember reading about a toddler who had been taught to call their genital genitalia a cookie jar and that they had been abused and had been trying to tell the teacher at school, you know, somebody’s touching my cookie jar and the teachers had no idea what was going on. And then the kid kept talking about it and talking about it finally called the parent and then figured out what was going on and this poor child had been trying to communicate this for weeks and couldn’t do it because they didn’t have the language to tell. Saleema:    [06:23] And that is a true story that a parent told me years ago. It just highlights the importance of being clear with our kids and teaching technical terminology from day one. Jen:   [06:32] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so we’ll sort of keep that in our minds is an important reason why we should do this, but we’re going to dig more into what children learn about sex and sexuality and how we can talk to them about it more in this show. So let’s jump ahead a little bit to school age. What do children learn about sex in school? Because it seems to me as though we’ve sort of reduced this huge, amazing topic of sex and sexuality to: Thou shalt not have sex before marriage because it’s wrong. And if thou does thou had better not get pregnant or get an STI. How does that happen? Saleema: [07:08] You know, much of what kids learn in school based sexual health education is fear-based and problem-focused, especially in the United States, I have to say. We here in Canada or are a lot more progressive and a lot more positive in how we address it. However, we still have a long way to go. I can’t speak to what the curriculum is in each area of California, for example, because it really does. I’m guessing it’s much like here in Canada where what our kids learn, even in elementary school about sexual health varies from school to school and even class to class, depending on who the teacher is. What I can tell you is that here in Canada, we do have a mandated curriculum for kids kindergarten to grade 10 in all schools, but what actually happens in the classroom is hit and miss because our teachers are not given adequate support. Saleema:   [08:02] They’re not given good resources. They may not have time and they may simply not feel comfortable teaching it and there’s no monitoring of it, and so it really is it we can’t be sure of what our kids are learning. Here in Canada, the bulk of the curriculum and the primary years, so kindergarten to grade three centers around abuse prevention, private parts on the body, really teaching consent. The idea that all kids are the boss of their bodies. They say who goes on them and who does not. And of course this is an important message of course when it comes to safety, but what our curriculum does not cover and what needs to be covered is basic reproduction and anatomy information. I can’t tell you how many times when I’m teaching grade one for example. So these are six year olds. How many times kids ask me what the word “sexy” means because they hear about it on commercials, they hear about it in music, they see it on…right now we have a bus ad campaign for extra gum and it says bad breath isn’t sexy. So I’ve got kids every week asking me about that and what it means. Jen:   [09:12] And what do you tell them? Saleema:   [09:13] Well, it really depends on the context in which they’re asking me. So I’m, a lot of kids are seeing, hey, sexy lady and songs for example, and they really have no idea what the word means. Just last week, a grade one girl came up to me and said, hey, I know what the word sexy means. And I said, Oh yeah, what does it mean? She said, it means cool. And then another girl interrupted and she said, no, it doesn’t mean cool. It means that you’re healthy and you make good choices about what you put in your body. So between what parents are telling them and what they’re interpreting for themselves, uh, there’s all kinds of miscommunication and confusion. Saleema: [09:51] What we want kids to know, for example, about the word sexy, is that because sex is only for grownups, it wouldn’t be appropriate for kids to use this word or even to sing it in a song. So when it comes up and your favorite song, maybe instead of seeing, hey, sexy lady, you could sing, hey, funny lady or hey, happy lady or you know, hey independent lady… I usually lose them when I, when I suggest that. But you know, the idea is just to sub out the word. And so they can still enjoy and sing their songs. But because sex is for grownups only, it wouldn’t be appropriate. In a literal sense, I explained to kids that to say that someone is sexy means that you want to have sex with them. And again, because sex is only for grownups, not appropriate. It’s not a bad word, it’s just not a word that kids should use. Saleema:     [10:35] The word sexy is one example of how much our kids are exposed to mostly through media at an early age. I’m also reminded of a time recently where I was in a kindergarten class and as we’re talking about the baby growing inside of the uterus, one of the girls blurts out, Oh yeah. And you know what else, Saleema? Sometimes grownups have sex when they’re drunk. So who knows where she got that from. My guess is that she overheard some adults talking or maybe she saw something on a movie, who knows, right? But this is proof that our kids are exposed to so much more than we think at such younger ages than we think. And so we have to be willing as parents to have those open conversations with them and help them make sense of what’s around them. Jen:   [11:21] Yeah. Because especially in the U.S., they’re not getting that in school. Knowing that you’re Canadian. I did a bit of background research on what is the state of sex education in the U.S. And I’m English and so it didn’t have any sex education here. And I found that 37 US states require that information on abstinence be provided at 26 percent, sorry, 26 states require that abstinence be stressed and in Utah absence has to be the dominant message given to students, educators and Utah aren’t even allowed to discuss, and I’m going to quote this, “the intricacies of intercourse, sexual stimulation or erotic behavior, the advocacy of homosexuality, the advocacy or encouragement of the use of contraceptive methods or devices or the advocacy of sexual activity outside marriage.” So that’s sort of the worst of that. Saleema:  [12:08] I hear that Jen, and I want to cry. Jen:     [12:10] Yeah. Yeah. But there are places that are getting better. You know, Chicago and Broward County have now some form of sex education in all grades starting in kindergarten. But yeah, that’s, that’s not the norm by any...