Wanna Play Dr.?

When she was three
Her barbies always did it on the first date
Now she's with me,
There's never any need for them to demonstrate...

Barenaked Ladies - "Life, In a Nutshell" -

In today's world of high-profile child molestation and sexual abuse cases, one of our most used coping mechanisms as a society seems to be the complete denial of positive childhood sexual experiences. As someone who used to be employed in the child care industry, both privately as a sitter and professionally as a kindergarten teacher, I know how "touchy" this issue can be.

When something even vaguely sexual came up, I reported it to the parents immediately - mainly to cover myself in case it became a contentious issue later on. For instance, around the ages of two-four, as many parents can relate, a common "problem" is that children take their clothes off and refuse to put them back on. Sure, you can make them stay dressed, but then you get to enjoy an hour of crying, instead of an hour of happy naked time. So, when a parent would come home to a smiling shirtless three year old instead of a fully clothed screaming monster, I would make sure to explain why. Luckily everyone I worked for were good people who just laughed and said, "Yeah we know. He/she does it to us too!"

But while running around naked is one thing, what happens when you find your toddler and their "best friend" in the closet kissing each other's genitals? You might say this type of sexually explicit behavior doesn't happen at such a young age, but the research into sexual development begs to differ. In fact, the rudiments of human sexual behavior are present from birth. Granted, these behaviors are exploratory in nature and not yet goal oriented as they are during puberty and beyond, but their existence shouldn't and can't be denied.

So what exactly is normal and healthy sexual play for your little ones? Like most aspects of development, it depends, but certain trends show time and again. In 1958 Spiro found (I know it's an old study but these things don't change that quickly!) "that the most frequent expression of heterosexual behavior consisted of a simple embrace of one child by another, followed in frequency by stroking and caressing, kissing, and touching of genitals" (Martinson, 1994) between the ages of three and eight. Interestingly, many of these sensually exploratory behaviors occurred less frequently or stopped all together when children reached the age of five due to social conditioning. Already children become aware that playing these types of games or touching their friends in these ways was something adults largely disapproved of. The assumption is then that children's games would progressively become more goal-oriented and sexually explicit earlier on without the inhibitory effects of social conditioning.

Given that children will naturally explore what feels good, how should you react as a parent? Well, that's really up to you and your personal sex values. One way to look at it is from a health rather than a moral perspective. How much information do you want your children to have about sex and how do you want them to acquire it? Simply ignoring it or pretending that children aren't sexual will not make it magically go away. At some point every parent will be confronted with this issue, and how you react will have an effect of how your child perceives sexuality, at least through adolescence, and potentially for the rest of their lives.

Luckily, giving children correct biological information about sexuality and reproduction does not have to be as challenging as many people make it out to be. Children are curious and open-minded little things. Telling a six year old that "a baby comes out of the vagina" when they ask is really not that shocking to them. The conversation will probably be very anticlimactic from your perspective as their reaction will likely be "oh" or "gross"...However if you wait until that six year old is twelve, and that twelve year old has always believed babies come out of the belly-button, you will certainly rock their world and send them for reality loop when you give them the real answer. In my opinion, I'd rather tell them the truth a little at a time when they ask about it rather than build up a series of age-appropriate lies that will later give them cause to doubt the validity of everything I say.

So when it's my turn to open up that closet door, what will I do? I'll Laugh...and then I'll probably laugh some more...But once I regain my composure I'll just say, "OK kids...put your clothes back on, let's go color instead..."

Source:

Martinson, Floyd M. (1994) The Sexual Life of Children. Bergin & Garvey, Westport CT.