TIME FOR THE TALK?

Lucy Corry on when — and how — to talk to your children about the birds and the bees

Lucy Corry on when — and how — to talk to your children about the birds and the bees

Lucy Kebbell thought she was doing everything right by her two daughters. She’d always answered their questions honestly, she’d bought some books and she’d even been to a seminar on how to talk to kids about sex. Even so, it was a huge shock when she discovered that her younger daughter had been doing some investigations on her own.

“When she was 6 she was having a playdate with her 5-year-old cousin and the two of them were under a blanket with an iPad,” Kebbell says. “I thought they were watching Charlie and Lola, but the next day my older daughter went to use the iPad for something and found lots of pictures of people having sex. I burst into tears, but it was also sort of hilarious — when I went back through the search history they had Googled “giraffe potos [sic]”, “is Elsa pregnant” and then “real sex potos”.

Kebbell, a Wellington corporate services manager, admits she was completely blindsided by the discovery.

“I felt so awful because I was supposed to be so attuned to what was going on. I’d been focused on my older daughter and making sure she was getting the right information, but I hadn’t thought the younger one would be interested too.”

Kebbell’s experience shows that talking to kids about sex hasn’t become any easier, even if you’re a liberal-minded parent who thinks they’re down with the topic. The internet may have all the answers but if you want to direct its unfiltered flow of (too much) information, you’re going to have to step up. But when? And how? And won’t your kids know it all anyway?