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the house in the presence of someone who is not a parent and definitely before they begin going online.
For younger kids, there are books you can read to introduce the topic of sex. For older kids, talk about it at dinner or in the car. It’s a very important discussion, but you don’t have to make a big, formal deal out of it, which can scare kids.
Make sure they know there are no silly questions, that they can talk to you any time, that their bodies will let them know if they’re in an uncomfortable situation and that they should listen to it.
At different ages, this topic is going to have different meanings. And we shouldn’t just pour all of the information into a child, either. I think we need to start by asking them questions: Have you heard anything about Michael Jackson lately? And if a kid says something like, ‘‘Yeah, I’ve heard he’s bad,’’ we can follow up with, ‘‘OK, so what did
Levin:
you hear?’’ It’s always about taking the lead from the child and meeting them where they are. Often we try to tell ourselves that we’ll use a few specific sentences to try to explain something, and then we’re done.
But the more we can establish an interactive pattern with children around talking about difficult issues and sexual issues, the better it is in the long run.
Q: How do you help your kid process feelings of disappointment or loss in a situation like this?
Drexler:
Listen, empathise, don’t make excuses for the person. Guide your child to express their feelings, but don’t feel the need to ‘‘fix’’ them or make the situation better.
The key is really just to connect, and not tell children the way they should think or feel, but just be open to what they have to say.
Ask them how they’re feeling. We can reassure them that most
Levin:
of the people we respect and care about are good people, and that nobody is perfect, and we need to talk about the not-perfect things.
Q: Do you think these sorts of parenting conversations are changing at all in the postMeToo era, when there’s more focus on how we should respond after a public figure has been accused of abuse?
Drexler:
I think parents are more aware of the need to encourage conversation with their kids, and to help their sons and daughters understand the idea of consent and why it is important.
Parents are not waiting until a kid is pre-adolescent to have the one sex talk.
Instead, they’re starting earlier in bits and pieces and helping normalise the topic so that kids feel less shame or embarrassment, which can prevent them from speaking up when they really should.