Byrds and Beatles

Talking to kids about sex.  If only our task were as easy as that of the mother in this picture!

Here’s a teaser from my latest article on YourTango:

What your kids know about sex may surprise you.

Our kids’ sex education begins the moment they tune into the world around them. Numerous gateways introduce them to our highly sexualized society: smartphones, tablets, laptops, television, supermarket tabloids, and sometimes our own jokes and language. With so much exposure, not educating our kids about sex is like high fiving sexual standards in the media. And this is nothing new.

Long before the Internet, a kid would discover his dad’s stash of Playboy in the garage while looking for a baseball. These days, a kid might land on a pornographic website or see provocative pictures on her parent’s iPhone while looking for a game app. What happens next depends on the parents’ attitude towards sex education.

When sex education is absent from the home, darkness descends.

My childhood experiences reflect this truth: children are the best recorders of information, but the worst interpreters. I was raised in an uptight religious community that regarded sex as taboo and it was not talked about. So I was shocked the day my playmates gleefully passed around pages from a modern day Kama Sutra. What was I supposed to do at the age of nine with this new information?

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