"You lay in the bed together, on top of each other, naked with your private parts touching. And that's the only way you can get children, right mom? Is that what you do?"Me, dumbfounded, "Well, yeah, but...," trying to grasp that I'm acutally having this conversation with my FOUR year old!
It all goes back to that girlfriend situation. Some of the older kids on the playground have caught on to their "relationship" even though our kids are completely innocent about it. They hardly even play together now but the titles remain. Kaylin, "the girlfriend" used it as a threat yesterday when Jaden wouldn't let her have a turn riding the tractor:
Kaylin: "You are SELFISH! Do you know what SELFISH means? It means you have to let me ride the tractor. If you don't let me have a turn Jaden, I won't be your girlfriend anymore."Anyway, today an older boy was teasing them saying, "Jaden loves Kaylin" while Jaden was on one end of the playground and Kaylin on the other. Then an older little girl whispers "a secret" to Kaylin with Micah watching all the while never suspecting what the secret actually entailed.
He thought the secret was that Jaden wanted to marry her...Wow, was he wrong--she skipped that part completely.
We later learned that the older girl began giving explicit instructions to Kaylin on how to carry out the act and then went over to where Jaden was playing on the bars and educated him. Who would suspect...with Micah sitting right there?!
When asked what his response was, Jaden said, "WOW!!"It was actually a great and probably very appropriate time for us to have this conversation so he doesn't have to rely on his peers for information of this nature. We were all laying in bed reading scriptures together when it came up. Thankfully, I had been cued by Kaylin's mom so that I would have the opportunity to talk to him about it.
We had a great discussion where I told him that this is not a conversation that children should be having together. That it is up to mommy's and daddy's to teach their children about those things and not other children. We told him that if children have questions about their bodies, they need to talk to their parents.
We told him that only adults have children and explained that mommy and daddy were best friends from the time they were little kids and that we rollerbladed together, went to dances together and became best friends. Then we each decided that we loved each other more than any other boy/girl in the whole world and so we got married. After that we waited two years, until we had enough money (well--ideally, right?), a place to live and were really ready to have children and take care of them. We asked him if children were easy to take care of and he emphatically replied, "No! Beckam whines and is a lot of work."
We also explained what can happen if people have children before they're ready and how sometimes they have to give their babies to other families who can take care of them (of course we explained how wonderful it is for the family that gets the baby, which he is very familiar with because our good friends here were just able to adopt).
It all seemed to sink in and he was very interested and affected by what we were saying. We asked him to promise that he would not discuss these things with other children since it was not his job and to let the kids know that he was only 4 3/4 and didn't need to worry about it for a long time. I told him he should then run off to play.
He said, "I'll just tell them that I'm 4 and I won't run off because that would be rude."Point taken. So hopefully we're on the same page and he doesn't do any educating about this newly acquired information. I think we'll be just fine. I did have a nice talk with the girl's parents and they were surprised but aware of when she was educated by an older boy a few years ago and so it goes....
Have you had the opportunity to have "the talk" with your kids? Were they FOUR?!!
7 comments:
Wow! I was hoping to have the BIG TALK at 8, and was wondering if that was too young?! You did well. Our oldest is always asking lots of questions and we respond as honestly and age-appropriately as possible. We have some great books "You Were Smaller than a Dot" and series that help a LOT! When my sister got married, our daughter wanted to know if Auntie knew how babies were made and informed her all about sperm and eggs and even offered to lend her our book! (She knows the biology of it, but not the PRIVATE PARTS part.) I have a big issue with playing with "older" children. It's hard, because as the oldest they tend to be attracted to even older children - they're curious I suppose. We have a Primary rule... if they're too old to be in your primary (which is Jr. primary or age 8 for our oldest) they're too old to be playing with. Good luck. I think you're both great parents, it's just a little tough when they throw you a curve ball. Enough said.
(Sorry.)
oh wow. it sounds like you handled that very well!
bigger kids can be scary- they're such an example, but you usually don't know where they're coming from...
no, sex or babymaking hasn't come up over here, even though E likes talking about pregnancy and birth.
Thanks for the encouragement!
We felt good about the outcome. Jaden also knows about the biology of babies and it probably would've taken him a long time to inquire about the logistics behind it all. I don't imagine it will become a preoccupation with him--he's so busy in his life saving the world and performing amazing physical feats.
I do know this SEVEN year old. They never play alone together just out at the playground very occasionally. She's always unsupervised but she's from Tanzania and in their culture, children are raised by the village and we do live in a village-like situation.
I know supervision is KEY but this happened with both Micah and Kaylin's mom sitting right there! I shutter to think what might have happened had all the parents not been around since she was encouraging them to act it out. (Kaylin's mom even intervened and told the girls that telling secrets was not okay. To which the older girl replied that it wasn't a bad secret about anybody. The mom again said that there would be no secrets).
I'm reminded that it is impossible to shield and protect them from the world the way we'd like and I know living in the world but not of the world is the biggest challenge we face. I suppose that's what makes our job as parents so hard. We have to do our best teaching them the principles we live by and hope they make the right choice when faced with adversity. Adversity is inevitable!! And of course vital to our development and progress.
I remember last year when I told my 6 years old that Mommy and Daddy need to talk in private and he said to me:Why? Are you going to have sex? I was speechless and I ask him where do you learn that word from? And he said that his friend from school told him. So my point is that I can’t keep my son in a bubble and I explained him that since he didn't know the details, he shouldn’t repeat it because is not appropriated to say it. So that was it, end of the conversation. Because it was just that, but in your case is different which such a details, I don't know what I have done it, but I really like the way that you handle it will help me in the future as a guide I guess. I still don't know if he heard it or not because they were all at the playground yesterday I let you know for sure and maybe you can talk with my child about it...lol.
Good luck and I'm pretty sure that he'll forget about it.
I am totally on board with the no secrets rule. We have had that family rule for quite some time. You can have a surpise, ie birthday presents, etc. I am so sorry, Lolly. I would be ticked at the older girl's parents. It seems like there should be some rule that kids must be supervised until age 10 or 12. Don't you think? I mean, isn't it illegal to leave them home alone? So how is it legal to leave them outside alone?
Enough said.
I hope it works out and that Jaden doesn't feel the need to share his new information in Primary! Sounds like you did a good job of taking care of it.
amen, cheryl. i think you did a remarkable job. explaining things like you did is much better than just shushing him up and not talking about it at all.
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