Teachable moments – a childhood kiss

childhood kiss between 2 young children for a teachable moment

Inside: Find out how to turn an innocent childhood kiss, into a teachable moment with your child about love, sex and relationships.

So how do you turn ‘a childhood kiss’ into an opportunity to teach your child something important.

Teachable moments should be your Number 1 strategy for sex education!

Learn more about what a teachable moment is.

Watch the video below.

Read the transcription

[00:00:00] How do we turn a childhood kiss into a teachable moment?

[Music].

[00:00:15] Hi, I’m Cath Hak from Sex Ed Rescue. Sex Ed Rescue is that channel where we talk about sex education, puberty, growing up, and all that sort of stuff. This week we’re talking about how to turn a childhood kiss into a teachable moment.

There’s a link in the description that explains what teachable moments are. But to put it simply they’re an opportunity that falls into your lap that you can use as a platform to talk to your child.

So, I remember when my six-year-old son came home from school and he said he’d kissed a girl named Jasmine for the first time. My first response to that was, “Ah, okay. I hope you asked her first.” Which he said he did. For me, I turned that into an opportunity to talk about consent because if your kids are watching movies, they could get the wrong idea. Sleeping Beauty is a classic one where she falls asleep and the Prince wakes her up by kissing her. Another is Snow White who bites into the apple and lays in a deep sleep until someone comes and kisses her without her consent.

By using Disney movies, you can slowly bring in this idea of getting consent before you kiss someone. So, if I was watching Sleeping Beauty with my children and the kiss happened, I’d go, “But, he didn’t ask if he could kiss her first. Do you think that’s okay?” But childhood kisses can be a great opportunity to talk about consent. It is also that age where your children might start talking about dating. They might start coming home and saying, “Did you know I have a girlfriend/boyfriend?” This is that opportunity to talk about the fact that relationships are a grownup thing.

[00:02:13] Now, some families are completely happy with a five-year-old dating someone. Some families think that their children should wait until they’re older. I think that, personally and professionally, it’s better to remind them that it’s a grownup thing. With how many sexualized messages, and easily accessible porn, we don’t want to rush them and encourage them into acting like adults. Especially when they already get so many negative messages about it. So, we can say it’s nice to have a special friend, but that’s something to do when you’re older. I have a whole blog post planned on how to deal with children having crushes and the topic is in some of my books as well.

[00:03:00] It might be in my, ‘Sex Education Answer Book’. But I do know it’s in my ‘Sex Ed Quickies’ app. So, your child having their first kiss is just a great opportunity to talk about special friends and the fact that we need to ask before we touch someone else’s body; or someone needs to ask us before they touch our body. So, this teachable moment is also about body safety as well. It’s about teaching them that there are rules about who we can touch, kiss, or hug. That they need to ask for permission first and learn to respect others’ personal space.

[00:03:37] Anyway, I hope that gives you some ideas on how you can turn a childhood kiss into an opportunity to talk about a few different things. If you have any ideas on how you could turn this into a teachable moment, please add it in the comments underneath.

Have a good one, Cheers.

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