How to find teachable moments for sex education

Teachable moments are everyday situations that allow you to talk to your child about sex.

They provide parents with an opportunity to bring up specific issues about sexuality with their kids. Teachable moments also help you to make sex an open, ongoing discussion with your kids.

Teachable moments are a simple and easy strategy that all parents can quickly master. You just need to start looking for them, work with them for a few weeks, and soon, you’ll be having lots of discussions about sexuality with your kids.

You’ll find more information about sex education in my Sex Education 101 page. And you can find more strategies for starting sex education conversations (like this) in my list of ideas on how to teach sex education in the family home.

Let’s get started!

What are teachable moments?

One of the simplest ways to make sex education feel easy and become a part of your everyday life is with teachable moments.

Teachable moments are everyday situations that give parents the opportunity to start a conversation. It’s an unplanned opportunity that you sense and then turn into an opportunity to teach your child.  A teachable moment is not something that you can plan for; rather, it is a fleeting opportunity that must be sensed and seized by the teacher.

Teachable moments can happen anytime, and they often pop up when they are least expected!

Here’s some examples of everyday situations that you  could turn into a teachable moment:

• Driving past an adult (or sex shop)
• Hearing a song on the radio with lyrics about oral sex
• A toothpaste advertisement of a woman in a bikini on a beach
• Two men sitting on a park bench kissing
• A pregnant friend
• Someone being kissed in a movie (even though they said no)
• Two birds doing the ‘mating dance’ in spring. 
• Finding a used condom on the ground.

What do you do when you find an everyday situation?

What do you do when you find an everyday situation with the opportunity to be turned into a teachable moment?

Well, there are two ways to handle it.

You can refer to it. For example:

• [Point to a pregnant person] ‘See that lady over there? Why do you think she has a big tummy?’ 
• [Point out an add on tv] ‘What does someone wearing a bikini have to do with toothpaste?’

 You can use it as a reminder to start a discussion. For example:

• [As you listen to the lyrics of a song on the car radio] ‘Have you ever wondered what oral sex is?’ 
• [As you see 2 women holding hands and kissing] ‘Did you know that when you grow up, you might fall in love with a man or even a woman. You might fall in love with both. And some people don’t fall in love with anyone.’

You can refer back to it later on. For example:

• ‘Remember those baby ducks that we saw at the park today? How do you think the mother duck made them?’
• ‘Remember how you were on YouTube earlier today, and there were adds showing on the bottom of the video? Well I wanted to talk about those adds, as it’s important that you don’t click on them. Let me explain why.’

You can just ignore it. Yep, just because you saw the perfect opportunity to talk about something, doesn’t mean you have to talk about it. Honestly, some days, I just don’t have the energy for turning it into a teachable moment. And once you start looking, you’ll find so many of them that you’ll be able to pick and choose which ones to use.

What do I talk about?

How do you know what to talk about?

Well, it depends. Once you get used to finding teachable moments, they just happen. With minimal effort.

You might have an idea tucked away in the back of your mind (like the need to talk about porn) and then you see an everyday opportunity to talk about it and you grab it. 

When getting started, teachable moments are easier to spot if you already know what you want to talk about.

Or you might see an everyday opportunity, and quickly think of a topic to discuss. Once you get used to spotting them, you’ll find that you are subconsciously on the lookout for them, and that spotting them becomes automatic.

Teachable moments occur spontaneously, and they happen all the time. You just have to be paying attention and be prepared to find ways to make use of them. Teachable moments often happen when you least expect them.

Let’s use two pigeons doing the ‘mating dance’ as an example.  (The YouTube video below will show you what I mean by the ‘mating dance’, and it even shows them briefly mating. If that feels too risque, then this YouTube video is sex-free.)

Here are some ideas for what you could talk about for this everyday opportunity:

• Consent, e.g. ‘Do you think that the male pigeon is asking for permission? Before they jump onto the female pigeon?’
• How babies are made, e.g. ‘Have you ever wondered how babies are made?’
• Sex, e.g. ‘See those pigeons? The male is doing a dance, to impress the female, and if the female likes the dance, then they’ll have sex. Do you know what sex is?’
• Periods or menstruation, e.g. ‘Have you ever wondered if birds have periods? What happens if their eggs aren’t fertilised?’
• Dating, e.g. ‘Do pigeons date before they mate? Or do you think they just jump straight into sex?’  

Can you think of anything else, that you could possibly talk about?

It’s up to you as to what you talk about – everyone is different and we all see different opportunities available.

The three parts of a teachable moment

Conversations are usually (not always) made up of three things:

1. Facts (what it is) 
2. Values (what you believe about it) 
3. Limits (when it’s okay to do/use/talk about it)

Let’s look at how you might use two pigeons doing the ‘mating dance’ as an opportunity to talk about consent. 

 1. Facts (what it is) 

‘Now that it’s Spring, we are going to start seeing baby birds. See that male pigeon? He is doing a special dance. He is asking the other pigeon for permission to mate. And if the female pigeon says yes, they will mate (make a baby or have sex). And if she says no, he ‘ll stop dancing (and try again later).’ 

 2. Values (what you believe about it) 

‘I like the way the male pigeon is asking first. He won’t mate with the female pigeon without her permission. I think that is really important, as you’re the boss of your body and you have a right over who can and can’t touch you.’

 3. Rules (when it’s okay to do/use/talk about it) 

‘It is really important that you ask someone before you touch their body. And equally important that someone asks before they touch you too!’

Where to find teachable moments

Everyday situations can be found in many places. They can be found in:

• Everyday routine
  • talking about the parts of the body when changing a nappy
  • talking about inappropriate touch when bathing the kids
  • talking about what happened during their school day and what it means, such as ’Mum, Tim said that I was gay today.’
• When you are out driving or shopping
  • talking about how a baby grows inside the uterus when seeing a pregnant woman
  • talking about homosexuality when seeing two men holding hands in the park
  • talking about body image when seeing a billboard where the model is stereotypically thin and beautiful
• Books, TV shows/cartoons, movies, and music
  • talking about the fact that, unlike the movie, sometimes girls fall in love with girls and not boys
  • talking about the lyrics of a song and talking about the values associated with it
  • choosing a particular book to introduce a topic, e.g. choosing a book about kissing/hugs to introduce boundaries around touch.
• A momentous event
  • talking about the latest sex scandal in the media
  • talking about events that happen at school e.g. the first girl in the class to start her period (menstruation)
  • talking about special events e.g. Child Protection Week, World Aids Day

You can find teachable moments everywhere! Once you start looking, you will be surprised at how many you start to find!

Tips for success

Here are some tips for turning your everyday situations into a successful teachable moment:

Already know what you want to talk about.  It helps if you already know what you want to talk about, e.g. consent. Opportunities are easier to spot when you already have a goal.

The more you do it, the easier it gets. Once you get used to looking for opportunities, you will start to find them everywhere.

You decide how much you want to talk. It could be a random comment, like, ‘Oh look, that pigeon is asking the other pigeon if they want to make babies’. Or it could be a longer conversation, where you then provide your child with information about how babies are made.

Sometimes they fail. Regardless of how experienced you are with teachable moments, sometimes they’ll just fail. Your child won’t respond or seems uninterested. Or, partway through the conversation, you realise that what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. This happens, and it’s hard not to feel like a failure! But it doesn’t matter, as, more importantly, you’re letting your child know that you’re open to talking!

Examples of teachable moments

To help you notice everyday opportunities that could become a teachable moment,  you’ll find 25+ examples in the videos below.

And remember…

• You can’t say too much – what they don’t understand will be forgotten!
• Find out what your kid already knows – ask more questions than you answer!
• Keep it short and sweet!
• Talk while you are doing something else, e.g., driving the car, washing the dishes, folding the washing.
• If you share your values, explain why, e.g. ‘I don’t believe in sex before marriage because of what our religious beliefs are’.
• Give factual information.
• It’s okay to say, “I don’t know,” but follow up as soon as possible.

Teachable moments for sex education are a great way to ensure sex education happens in your home. They provide everyday opportunities to casually talk about a whole range of sexual topics that you may not usually talk about.

Happy talking!
❤️ Cath

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