Home truths: teaching your child sex ed

For her Sexual Wellness Sessions series on Instagram Live, psychosexual & relationship therapist Kate Moyle talked on 30 June 2020 to Outspoken director Yoan Reed about why it’s important for both parents and children to talk about sex & relationships issues.

Here are some of Yoan’s personal and professional insights from their enlightening talk How To Have Open & Honest Sex Education Conversations At Home…

Talking shop: Yoan Reed (above, in blue shirt) in conversation with Kate Moyle

ON HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD SEX ED

Having open conversations at home, even before children start school, helps them to develop. It’s about being courageous and thinking about your own sex-ed experiences and how you can change your own understanding to help your child.

For us as parents it’s twofold: 1) we didn’t have good sex ed ourselves and 2) the world has moved on – the gap between children’s and adults’ understanding is growing day by day.

As parents we communicate to our children how we feel about our body and how we view others. I grew up in Denmark, and at that time it was normal to see naked bodies – in swimming pools, saunas, changing rooms. There was no shame, fear or hiding. It was nothing to do with sex; it was just a body.

When my now-adult sons were little I read them this book from my childhood: How A Baby Is Made by Per Holm Knudsen. It was published in the UK in 1975 but is now expensive to find. It shows a mother and father having a healthy, loving relationship with very simple, up-front pictures of how a baby is conceived – including the penis, vagina, the baby growing inside, the baby being born. One of my sons said: “I can’t remember when I learned how a baby was made – it was just part of what I knew.”