What are Mum and Dad Doing in Bed?

Tips for Explaining Physical Intimacy to Children

Jan 15, 2009 Wei Yin Wong

Parents can help their young children help cultivate a healthy and responsible attitude towards physical intimacy when the time comes.

What is making love? This is the much dreaded yet expected question from young children to their parents. Exposure to the mass media and the behavior of grown-ups around them will often prompt the question.

Parenting expert and author of Questions Children Ask [London: Dorling Kindersley, 2002] Dr. Miriam Stoppard says that when asked about intimacy-related questions, parents can emphasize to children that it should only come from love and that with love comes responsibility.

“This refers to the responsibility to put the other person before themselves, never to coerce, pressure or force and to have respect for others and for themselves,” she says. The following are some useful strategies from Stoppard to answer a child’s questions about physical intimacy.

Defining Making Love to Young Children

For preschoolers, keep the answer simple but truthful. Saying that making love is a special way of kissing and cuddling that mums and dads do to show their love for each other is usually enough. Older children between six and eight may be able to understand that intimacy between two adults who love each other is a good thing that makes them feel happy and wonderful.

Always connect love, respect and responsibility when talking about sexual intercourse. Say also that people usually wait until they are grown up before they start having intimate relationships. Emphasize that no one should be physically intimate with anyone else until they are truly ready for it.

Defining Masturbation to Young Children

Many parents have hang-ups about masturbation because of misunderstandings during their own childhood. However, bear in mind that it is a perfectly normal part of growing up and there is no shame in masturbating.

Preschoolers rarely ask about this. But school-going kids from age six onwards may have heard the word and become curious about it. Explain that masturbation means touching or rubbing the clitoris in girls or the penis in boys. This calls for a brief lesson in human anatomy first.

If you see your child masturbating, don’t scold. Agree that while it feels nice, this is something that he should do only in private because some people are not comfortable with it and may be offended. He may have heard that masturbating can cause blindness, deafness and all kinds of bad things. Assure him it’s not true. However, if other older children or adults try to touch him in such a way, he must tell Mum or Dad about it.

Defining Orgasm to Young Children

Now, answering this question frankly and accurately can be difficult as well. Again, honesty and openness are crucial to help your child understand what orgasm is. Children under six are unlikely to ask this question but if they do ask, simply explain that an orgasm is a very nice feeling that starts deep inside the body.

For older children, explain that an orgasm is a very intense and exciting feeling that spreads over the whole body when people have been touching their clitoris or penis. Grown-ups have this kind of feeling when they make love, especially if they truly love and care for each other.

Granted, questions on sex, masturbation and orgasm are never easy to answer, especially when they come from young children. However, parents do have a duty to answer them in a straightforward way. As Stoppard says, children who are given information about physical intimacy by their own parents are better able to behave and act responsibly when they are ready for intimate relationships.

Those who find this article useful may also be interested to read Where do Babies Come from.

The copyright of the article What are Mum and Dad Doing in Bed? in Stay-at-Home Parents is owned by Wei Yin Wong. Permission to republish What are Mum and Dad Doing in Bed? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Physical Intimacy Should Only Come from Love