How to share personal stories as a way to teach sex education
Story telling has always been a great way to share knowledge. And it is how knowledge has been passed down for generations.
Story telling is also a useful strategy for teaching sex education in the family home.
Stories help to strengthen your connection with your child, are a great way to share your values and help place meaning around facts. They also help to normalise love, sex, relationships and growing up (puberty) for your child.
Plus sharing them lets your child know that they’re not alone. And that you remember what it was like to be a child growing up.
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!
Examples of stories
Here are some examples of personal stories to share. These could be used to start a conversation (if your child responds). Or they could be a teachable statement i.e. a casual statement that your child may (or may not) respond to, but it still teaches them something.
I used to play with these dolls as a child. I had a baby doll, and I used to make the Ken doll bounce on top of Barbie to make the baby. I don’t know if I really knew why I did that, as my parents never talked to me about sex.
I remember watching this tv show as a child. We used to get up early on a Saturday morning just so we wouldn’t miss it. They always stereotyped genders back then. Girls were weak, and boys were strong.
My parents didn’t have a lot of spare cash when I grew up. Having 7 kids was pretty expensive, so Nanny used to sew clothes for me. I hated it and found it so embarrassing. I wanted to dress and look like all the other kids, and to fit in. And I thought that wearing the same clothes meant that.
We never had the internet when I was a kid. We had to look things up in the encyclopedia. I remember looking up words like sex, penis, and vagina. I am so glad that you don’t have to grow up as ignorant as I was.
Looking for more sex education resources? Then visit my Sex Education 101 page!
I hope you find this helpful for teaching sex education to your child.
Happy talking!
❤️ Cath
More sex education resources
More help with sex ed at home
Not sure what to teach at your child’s age? Browse by Age has a free printable checklist for every age group: the priority topics, some scripts to try, and what to do next.
If you’d rather have something more structured to work from:
Getting Started with Sex Ed gives you the bigger map. What sex ed actually covers, when to start each part, and how to keep it simple.
The Sex Ed Q&A Toolkit is for the questions that turn up when your brain isn’t ready. Age-based wording you can reach for in the moment, rather than freezing and hoping they forget.
Or have a look at everything for getting started.