Talking to Your Children about Sex
An interview with sex education experts Mary Flo & Megan from Birds & Bees
Source: Juila Cameron/Pexels
In today’s newsletter, I was fortunate enough to interview Mary Flo Ridley and Megan Michelson of Birds & Bees. Birds & Bees is an incredible resource for talking to children about sex. Mary Flo and Megan have a combined 36 years of experience in helping parents to have these difficult conversations. They have an online course for parents and provide tips for parents on Instagram. In our interview, we discuss common questions that parents might have about talking to children about sex. If you are limited on time, scroll down to the bottom for the “Overall Translation” of our interview which provides a brief summary including seven specific tips for talking to your child about sex. If you have time, read or listen to the full interview below:
Dr. Cara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Parenting Translator newsletter. I'm here with Mary Flo Ridley and Megan Michelson from Birds & Bees. I'm so excited because I have been following them for a while and I am a huge fan of theirs. I also think this is such an important topic that so many of us have questions about. So Mary Flo and Megan, could you please introduce yourselves and tell us what you do, where parents can find you, and what kind of resources you offer?
Megan: My name is Meghan Michelson, and I am married with three young kids, who are nine, seven and four. So getting older, but still young-ish. I guess I'm officially out of baby world, which feels like a milestone. I started working with Mary Flo at Birds & Bees seven years ago, which is really exciting. Our goal at Birds & Bees is to equip and empower parents to have age appropriate conversations with their young kids about sex. We really want to get rid of this whole idea of “the talk.” I think as parents culturally, we think, “Okay, we talked about this one time. And that's it.” We want to get rid of that completely and really train parents to have a lot of little-by-little conversations, because that's what makes a huge impact.
Mary Flo: I'm Mary Flo Ridley. I'm married and we have three grown children and eight grandchildren. This is a topic that I've been working on for several decades and I think it’s more important than ever. I think parents of young children are dealing with this topic a lot more than they were a couple of decades ago because of the devices that are now in their world. So there's just a lot more conversations about this in a really healthy way. Parents are just much more in tune to how am I going to approach this topic than they were a while back. We have a website and a great Instagram community. We’re just so glad to be here.
Dr. Cara: Yes, and I'm so happy to have you here! Thank you guys so much for being here. I'm so excited. I have so many questions to ask, so I'm going to go ahead and jump right in. So I love this idea that you said that it isn't really just “the sex talk” and it's more of a series of conversations. So the first question I have is: What age do these conversations start? And what topics do you first address?
Mary Flo: Well, they start when you start talking about their bodies. So this starts at potty training, this starts at changing diapers. Actually, it starts even before that, because we like parents before they even have conversations with their kids to think to themselves: What is the main message I want my children to get about sex when they're growing up in my family? So we ask and encourage parents to come up with this message that they're trying to get across to their children. We talk a lot about that and and even include it in our workbook to give parents the ability to be equipped to know what direction these conversations are going to take before they even happen. The overall message is going to vary from family to family. So that's the important pre-step before you talk to your children. This will determine the words you use and vocabulary you use.
For young children, you could first bring up this conversation during bath time or potty training. This conversation would involve just starting to talk to your children about body parts in a way that's very matter-of-fact. You want them to see you as a loving authority in their lives for teaching them about their bodies and for how their bodies work.
Megan: I would say to piggyback on what Mary Flo was saying, so much of our goal at Birds & Bees and what excites us is to really take the fear out of this topic and to really give parents a confidence to think: “Okay, I can do this!” Because I think so often parents come in with this idea of dreading these conversations or thinking: “I don't want to talk about this”or “These words make me uncomfortable.” We like to say “penis” is not a bad word. It's just a body part. So we just really want to give parents a competence to have these conversations, because they do start so young.
These little conversations when our kids are young not only protect our kids, but they also set us up for a solid foundation for future conversations that are rooted in trust and communication. Starting young and talking about this early and often is something we say a lot. Having these early and often conversations really does help establish you as the expert, or the loving authority, like Mary Flo said. Talking about body parts is really a great place to start. You can start by introducing these words, the anatomically-correct words, such as penis and vagina, to our young kids.
So, the specific age you start is not really important but we just say, start as soon as you can.
Mary Flo: For example, when they ask a question like: “How's that baby getting out of there?” Don't put that off. Go ahead and give them a really full answer to that question because that's when they realize, “Okay, this is the person that I should be asking questions to and I don't have to go find somebody else to ask.” We always tell parents to say, “That's a great question. I'm so glad you asked.” Invite them in.
Some children don't ask questions. The parents of these children may feel like, “Well, I guess I don't have to say anything.” But that's not really true. Try to find opportunities to bring these topics up. You might take a meal to a family who just had a baby, and then on the way home, you could say, “Have you ever wondered how that baby got out of there?” So instead of leaving this topic up to children to be in charge of and determining when this all starts, you can take the initiative and share information so that they know that it’s okay to talk about all of these things.
Dr. Cara: Are there any topics that you feel like you should wait on? For example, maybe the actual mechanics of sex? Is there an age when it is developmentally appropriate to have these conversations? How do you know when your child is ready to discuss a more advanced sex topic?
Megan: I know parents want to know a specific age for these conversations. I think people want me to say, “It’s age 11, 4 months, and 2 days,” and they'll write it down in their planner and they will do it exactly then. Spoiler alert, there is no right age.
So what we really want parents to understand, and this is something we talk a lot about in our course— is that your family is the age of your oldest child. So, in your family, your oldest is seven, right?
Dr. Cara: Yeah.
Megan: So your oldest is seven and your little ones are living in a 7-year-old world. So they're probably watching things that your oldest watches and hearing things and engaging in conversations at a 7-year-old level. I mean, the things that come out of my 4-year-old’s mouth. Oh my word! I would have been horrified if my oldest had said it. So we really encourage parents to kind of get a grasp of that understanding that your family is the age of your oldest child. What that does is really poke through this idea that there is a perfect age, because not every 7-year-old is the same. Not every 8-year-old is the same.
What we really want to do is to shift our focus and our priorities away from when is a perfect age. So many parents think, “I don’t want to do it too young and over-sexualize them, but I also don't want to wait too late and miss the boat completely, so when's the perfect age?” The reality is that we have to get rid of this idea of when and really focus on the question of who? Who do you want to tell them? And who do you want to have that power of the first impression? So we're not trying to skirt around your question, even though we're not giving you an answer. It's more like these conversations are mileposts that start way back when. It's not like you say nothing and then all of a sudden you're talking about penises and vaginas getting together. You start way back when and start talking about body parts and what private parts mean and “no means no” and “no means stop” and “nobody can touch these private parts'' and “good pictures/bad pictures” and “seeds and eggs.” We’re having all of these conversations that build and build and then you work your way up to more complicated topics So instead of focusing on age, you really want to focus on did you talk about all of these other things first?
Dr. Cara: Okay, that's so helpful. Wow, I've never thought about it that way.This topic makes me think, more generally, how do we reduce shame around sexuality and make it more of a matter-of-fact conversation, like you said, but also explain privacy and socially-appropriate behavior? I know a common example of this is a child who is touching themselves in public. How do you handle that without creating shame around this behavior?
Mary Flo: That's our most frequently-asked question and one we love talking about. For example, my son has his hands in his pants all the time, or my daughter is rubbing herself with a stuffed animal when she's falling asleep. These are the questions we get all the time and everyone is embarrassed to ask them. Parents often think, “Oh, we're the only ones,” but really it's very common.
Our overarching answer I would say is that your tone of voice really is so important. With all these conversations with young kids, your young children feed off of you and reflect your energy. So if your child has their hands in their pants while watching TV, don’t say “Oh my! Gross! Get your hands out of there!” since this can lead to shame. This is something we really try to train parents on is giving them a plan and giving them the words to say something like: “Let's get our hands out of our pants. We want to keep our hands really clean. Can you wash your hands with me?” Parents can also flip the script and say something like: “Our privates are really delicate and our hands can have lots of germs so let's get our hands out of our pants please.”
We really encourage parents that it's the tone of voice that really can take away that shame. Our goal in talking about body parts is to make it very clear what's okay and what's not, including what kind of touches are okay for yourself or other people and to make that black-and-white, but to keep your tone to an “it-is-what-it-is” type of thing. These are not bad parts. These are not bad words. I think a lot of that just takes practice. I think for some parents this comes very easily to them. And some parents can’t get the words out. That’s another benefit of starting young. If you start talking about these topics when kids are young and you start practicing these words in your home and your facial expression and your tone of voice. Then, the next thing you know, they're six, and you can talk about this all day long.
Dr. Cara: Yes, that's such a good point. So as a child psychologist, I think that taking the shame away from these topics is so important. For example, when I told my daughter what a period was I was very matter-of-fact and said “it's bleeding from your vagina” and explained some of the details. But then she went and told the whole kindergarten, that a period is “bleeding from the vagina” and I was cringing on the inside. So how do you take the shame away, but also make sure they're not telling the whole class about it? How do you make sure they aren’t saying inappropriate things in public?
Mary Flo: Well, I think you can. I totally get it. Sometimes that's what paralyzes parents from even talking to their kids, because they don't want this to now be spread around the neighborhood by their child. So what you do is set up a boundary of saying, “I'm so glad I got to explain that to you. This is a parent-child conversation. So all of your friends’ parents, they want to tell their own children when they think it's the right time. There's nothing wrong with what I told you but this falls into the category of a private family conversation, so that's what parents get to do with their own children and not have other children tell them. So, when we're having a parent child conversation, I'm going to give you the heads up, okay?”
You can add: “Bring me all your questions. We can talk about it anytime, but once you leave the house or you're talking to your friends, you let their parents have those conversations with their children.”
Dr. Cara: I love that. That's so great. So I would love to ask a more specific question next. When do you know that it's no longer appropriate to shower with your child? Or let them see you naked? And when do you know that it's time to separate siblings in the bath or just generally stop seeing each other naked? How do you explain that to your child without giving them shame about nudity and about their body?
Megan: Okay. So we say again, this is a question we get all the time. Parents want to know exactly when do brothers and sisters stop bathing together or when do I stop changing in front of my kids? When does my husband have to put a towel on? What are the rules? I think parents want a lot of instruction and a lot of guidelines. Our rule of thumb is this— we want families to respect the most modest person in the home. So what that means is, if there are three kids, let's say ages 9, 7, and 4, like my family, and there are boys and girls, and everyone's happy in the bath together. If nobody has any shame, nobody's embarrassed, nobody's requesting privacy, and everybody's happy, it is not a problem. What typically happens is around mid- to late-elementary school years, somebody will start to verbalize that desire, such as “I don't want to take a bath with my sisters anymore” or “I’m going to take a shower by myself without my brothers” or “Y’all close the door.” If there’s any kind of desire that's verbalized like that, really try to respect that, and say, “Okay, you don't have to take a bath anymore with your brothers” or “Guys close the door—he's changing,” to respect the most modest person. If everyone is okay with it, and this is all obviously in the pre-puberty years, then it's fine.
The same thing goes with the adults. They are included in this “respect the most modest person in the home” as well. If you're very comfortable, running downstairs without a shirt on to grab something, your husband is crossing the room without his towel on to get his clothes, or whatever you do in your home, and everybody's fine. The kids aren’t looking uncomfortable and no one is batting an eye, then that is okay. But if it's making someone uncomfortable, then respect that. If you're walking around naked getting your clothes on and your little boy is visibly uncomfortable, really respect and try to appreciate that. Maybe you decide let’s all get some robes for Christmas or we’re all going to close the doors when we're changing. Let's try to give everybody a little bit of privacy. So every house is going to have different modesty levels— every family will have that. But as a rule of thumb, we say to respect the most modest person in the home.
Dr. Cara: I love that. That makes a lot of sense. So on to a more serious note, a lot of us parents hear horror stories and have a lot of fear about sexual abuse out there. So how do we prepare our children to help protect them from the possibility of sexual abuse without scaring them or bringing up topics that are really developmentally inappropriate for them? And it’s not just these adult sexual predators that we think about, but also other children being inappropriate with them and doing something that doesn't make them comfortable. How do we prepare them for that without just scaring them and making them think about things that are just not something that they should be thinking about at their age?
Mary Flo: A lot of what we’ve been talking about bleeds into this. Once again, it's about your tone of voice and talking about things that are “appropriate” and “not appropriate.” For example, it's appropriate for us as a family to change clothes together, but outside of our family that would not be appropriate.
You also want to start with the body parts and be sure that your children know what the word “private” means. So it's defining that word for them. For example, “When I say ‘private,’ I mean that other people don't touch, look at, or take pictures of your private parts, or your penis or vagina.” The reason we use the word “vagina” at Birds & Bees is because we just want to hang on to one word for a while when they're little and get into all of the anatomy of a woman's body later on. Certainly, these are your children and you can use whatever words that you want to, but because birth and conception involve the vagina, that's the word that we kind of hang on. So you would say something like: “These parts of your body are special and they need to be private. So we cover them up and other people don't uncover them.” We make sure to say “other people” and not just the word “strangers,” because then they think, “Oh, well, that's my Uncle Jim. He's not a stranger.” So we use other people— and that means both grown-ups and children.
Then when you do catch your kids playing “doctor” or doing something inappropriate, you try not to freak out even though everything inside of you is freaking out. You say something like: “Oh, remember, we keep our clothes on when we are playing. We can play doctor with the animals, or we can give a shot in the arm or anything but let's leave our clothes on.” You can also be understanding: “I know when we're at the doctor's office sometimes you do take your clothes off, but this is not a doctor's office, and we're not going to do that.”
So you just calmly come along beside them and, and remind them and you may not do it that way the first time. If you freaked out, you can circle back and say, “I kind of freaked out this morning when I walked in, and you were playing doctor. I know my tone of voice frightened you. I could see that in your face. And I'm sorry. It just really surprised me because I know we've talked about keeping our privates private. Please forgive me for overreacting. But that was mommy overreacting, you weren't doing anything wrong— you just had forgotten.”
Another important conversation is: “We don’t keep secrets.” There are different levels of this conversation. You don't just have this one conversation— it just comes up a lot.
Megan: Just to piggyback on that— I think that so much of this is just creating this tone in your home and in your families like this is just something we talk about. You’re having frequent and frank conversations often with your little kids. I have two little boys and so they're wrestling all the time and half of the time they're naked. I usually say something like “Boys, stop. Remember, we don't ever touch somebody else's penis. Put your underwear on before you wrestle some more.” We're just layering and layering and layering this information. What you're doing is just letting your kids know, these are not bad words and this is something that we talk about.
Just the other day, someone told me that they had an incident with their children. She said: “We’ve been implementing these conversations and talking a lot about this in our home, and there was an incident that happened on the bus.” She did not go into detail but she said: “A line was crossed, but my son came home and was able to verbalize it to me very clearly. He even met with the school counselor, and she was blown away by how calm and clear he was about this incident.” She said, “Thank you for these words.” Again, this is not to say that talking to your kids will protect them from everything. That's not the reality. But what it does is give your kids a lifeline to know: “Oh, that wasn't right. Now I know what words to say. I know exactly which line was crossed and I know who to go to.”
If we don't talk about these words and it’s kind of like this secret, kids don’t know what to say and don't even know what words to use. They might think: “I don't know if I can talk to my parents about this.” So it just gets buried and then things get worse. We just want to be as clear as day that: “This is your penis. This is a part that nobody else can touch this. If anybody else does that you come and talk to me.” These are just conversations you're having over and over and over again, and so kids think “This is just something we talk about.” We've had incidents in our own home as my daughter has gotten older. Where, thank God, it was nothing awful, but a line was crossed. She went straight to the teacher to say something using certain words and then went straight home and talked to me. It was one of those things, that if she had not done that, maybe things would have progressively gotten worse and things could have gotten pushed down.
I think it's just very empowering for us as parents to speak in this way to our kids. But be mindful of personalities, like I have some anxious tendencies in some of my kids. And so I haven't had that conversation that there are some bad people out there, because I know with my kids’ ages and how they are, it wouldn’t go over well. That's why we want parents to talk to their kids, not us, because you all know and love your children 10,000 times more than we do. I know that conversation would probably send my daughter into a panic, so we haven't gotten there yet with her. But we've just made everything else very clear. I'm sure we'll have those conversations more in the future. But for now, like Mary Flo said, these conversations are not all at once. These are all little building blocks, or what we like to say is “drip, drip drip.”
Mary Flo: So I think as far as protecting from abuse, you want to clear the air and make it very open about these guidelines— this is what's okay, this is not okay. These are things we can talk about in our home. There are no secrets— secrets aren't fun and secrets can be really hurtful. Surprises are great, but we don't do secrets.
I think what really happens is, there's a lot of darkness out there and a lot of bad things do happen, but we just want kids to feel comfortable talking. We want our homes to be a safe place. We want our families to be a safe place that you can come to. That starts by talking about it. If they've never heard mom or dad say that word penis or never talked about body parts, then that seems like a very, very scary step for them to take first.
Dr. Cara: Yes that is so helpful and that all makes a lot of sense to me. So the final question I want to ask is, as parents now in this day and age, we also have dangers online that we have to worry about. I was shocked to read on your website that the average age a child first sees porn is 11 and it's often by accident. So how do you prevent young children from getting into these inappropriate spaces online? Is there anything you can do to talk to them or any safeguards you can use on your electronics to prevent this?
Mary Flo: Well, like Megan just said, a lot of it has to do with preparing them. Don’t just let that be the first thing. You have to kind of run ahead of them. Also, as she was saying, which I just love, we just have to use a very matter-of-fact, not heavy, tone of voice.
Instead of “I want to tell you something really dark and scary that's out there on the internet” or “Okay, this is a very serious conversation.” Instead you can just say: “This is the iPad. We enjoy watching a lot of fun things. There's some fun games”. Just like we warn them about swimming pools, about crossing the street— we don't sit down and go eyeball to eyeball and say: “Okay, this is pretty scary. We're about to cross this street.” No, we say “Hold my hand. This is the safest way. But streets can be a dangerous place to play. So we don't play there.” So we want them to know there can be some bad things on technology. Technology can get away from you and you can find things that are not good.
There's a wonderful resource called Good Pictures Bad Pictures and Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr.. These are great resources because they are books you can sit down and read them and they give you a game plan of what to say. For example, “Okay, we enjoy and we need our devices, but there are places on our devices that would be very inappropriate and that can show damaging or degrading pictures.” So we need to give them a plan: “If you should stumble upon any of those things, come straight to me. Just close the iPad and come to me. Don't try to get out of it or change to another app, just close it and come see me and we can talk about it.”
The Darkness starts in the secrets. So that's why if you don't introduce the topic, then you're just setting them up for a bad situation. You need to introduce the topic and you need to do it in the most matter-of-fact way. It's not a breezy thing, but it is definitely just using your normal tone. Just like you would warn them: “Now, don't forget, I've got the oven on over there so don't get too close.” That is the same tone of voice.
Dr. Cara: Okay, that's very helpful to know and makes a lot of sense, so that your kids could feel comfortable coming to you and know they're not going to be in trouble and know it isn't this shameful thing. Well, thank you guys, I've learned so much. This has been so helpful. Could you please tell everybody where to find you again? Anything else you want to add?
Mary Flo: Thank you. It’s been such a treat. You can find more information at Birds & Bees and really the best place is probably Instagram. We share a lot of talking tips and helpful phrases that you can use. Our website is where you can find our online course. So our online course is the most comprehensive product that we have that really walks you through our entire six-step strategy and all these things from preschool to pre-teen. We walk you through all of these many years of lots of little conversations. So reach out if you have more questions. We love doing what we do and it's really our joy to give parents this confidence, because your kids deserve better than “the talk” and you can do it.
Dr. Cara: Amazing. Well, thank you both so much. This has really been so helpful.
Mary Flo: Well, thank you. It's been great to visit with you.
Overall Translation
Mary Flo and Megan from Birds & Bees provided some incredible tips on talking to your children about sex. Here are some of the tips I found to be the most helpful:
Decide on the underlying message in advance. Parents should first think about and understand for themselves (and with their parenting partner if applicable) what the main message they would like their children to get about sex when growing up in their family.
Have frequent and frank conversations rather than one big “talk”. Plan a series of conversations that begins with just discussing the child’s body and body parts. You want to establish yourself as an expert or a loving authority on this topic. Talk about everything in a matter-of-fact tone, giving full and accurate answers, and encouraging more questions
Your family is the age of your oldest child. When you are considering the “right” age for addressing certain topics, remember that you should really consider the age of your oldest child since your younger children will be exposed to shows, people, devices, etc. that are meant for your oldest child.
Don’t focus so much on the “right” age to have these conversations. Rather you want to focus on building up to more and more complex conversations with a lot of little conversations over time.
Meet your child where they are. Be careful that you are answering your child’s questions at their level of understanding and what is developmentally appropriate for them. For example, before puberty, they are likely not ready to discuss pleasure or sexual desire
Watch your tone and explain everything in a matter-of-fact way. Use a normal tone and explain these topics in the same way you would teach other safety topics. You want your child to think this is something you feel comfortable discussing so they feel comfortable coming to you.
Respect the most modest person in the home. Rather than worrying about what age you should stop changing around your kids or disallow them from bathing with their siblings, focus on everyone’s comfort level and respect the comfort level of the most modest person in your home.
Calmly discuss the dangers of technology. Explain the positives and negatives of technology and how they might see something that makes them uncomfortable. Tell them that if they see something like this to come to you right away.
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Welcome to the Parenting Translator newsletter! I am Dr. Cara Goodwin, a licensed psychologist with a PhD in child psychology and mother to three children (currently an almost-2-year-old, 4-year-old, and 6-year-old). I specialize in taking all of the research that is out there related to parenting and child development and turning it into information that is accurate, relevant, and useful for parents! I recently turned these efforts into a non-profit organization since I believe that all parents deserve access to unbiased and free information. This means that I am only here to help YOU as a parent so please send along any feedback, topic suggestions, or questions that you have! You can also find me on Instagram @parentingtranslator, on TikTok @parentingtranslator, and my website (www.parentingtranslator.com).
DISCLAIMER: The information and advice in this newsletter is for educational purposes only and is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical, mental health, legal, or other professions. Call your medical, mental health professional, or 911 for all emergencies. Dr. Cara Goodwin is not liable for any advice or information provided in this newsletter.
