Stay involved with your child’s life: Teaching sex ed through parental engagement

Staying involved in your child’s life would have to be one of my favourite strategies for keeping sex ed conversations happening in an everyday way.

Especially as kids become tweens and teens. 

And there’s a good chance that it is something that you’re already doing!

In this blog post, I’m going to share examples of how to use stories to teach sex education.

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!

The meaning of ‘staying involved’

What do I mean by staying involved in your child’s life? And why is it so important?

It is where you get involved in the small things in your child’s life. Like watching their favourite tv shows with them, talking to them about the books they read, listening to music with them, playing computer games with them, joining the same social media networks, following the same sports teams and things like that. 

Getting involved in the small things in your child’s life means that they will come to you about the big things. They’ll come to you with their questions, worries, concerns and problems.

Also, we know that when kids can talk to you about sex, they can talk to you about anything. From bullying to parties, sexuality, parties to drugs. No topic should be too shameful.

And staying involved in your child’s life means that parents are a kid’s first resource. 

How to turn this into a conversation

Once you start doing these things with your child, you will begin to notice opportunities to talk about sex ed topics. Music, TV shows, movies and books provide lots of opportunities to talk about love, sex and relationships

Here are some suggestions.

Ask your child to choose some music to play aloud in the kitchen as you are preparing dinner. Listen to the lyrics and ask the occasional question, like ‘What’s this song about?’ or ‘I like this song but I don’t like how they talk about women.’

Ask your child if they want to watch a movie with you, their choice of movie.  Make some popcorn and watch it together. Look for opportunities to talk about love, sex and relationships. It might be a random comment, like ‘Seriously, does this guy ever ask before he kisses someone!’ or ‘She might be gorgeous but she’s pretty mean’. Or you might ask a question, like ‘Have you ever wondered if sex in movies is like what happens in real life?’.

Ask your child if they can recommend some new authors to read. Read some of their books or read books by other authors in the same genre. Try to start a conversation about it. For example, ‘Hey, I found a new author to read that you might like. I was quite surprised to see them weave consent into all their love scenes. It is so rare to see that in a book.’ Or you could discuss a scene in a book they recommended. For example, ‘I finished reading that book you gave me to read. What did you think of the relationship between Ash and Sam?’ 

Ask your child how to play their favourite computer game. I recently paid for StarDew Valley for my kids, and they are now in the process of teaching me how to play it. It provides lots of opportunities for us to chat about love, sex and relationships as we play. 

Now, these are all little things that you can do that don’t take up too much of your time. But importantly, they strengthen your relationship with your child. And an added bonus is that they give you lots of opportunities to talk about sex ed topics!

I hope you find this helpful for teaching sex education to your child.

Happy talking!
❤️ Cath

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