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"I'd rather talk about the blind leading the blind." That's the first thing that came to my mind when my husband and I tried to talk to our preteens about sex for the first time. It was a rude awakening for him and me, because apparently our twelve-year-old knew more than we thought. This rude awakening left me wondering where he was taught? How strange it seemed to be sitting there with my first born child, as innocently as he seemed to be, and realize that his dad and I were not the first human beings who discussed such things with our son, who we believed would have no clue what we were trying so desperately to explain in a mature and responsible way.
The entire conversation only lasted a moment or two, because you see, he explained to me how sex was achieved in more scientific terms than I'd ever heard or ever knew to be true. There was nothing left to do but to pat his head as we said, "Okay, nice chatting with you, so now you can go outside and play." After that day my husband and I knew we'd need to deal with a few issues before we dared to approach the subject of sex again.
The strangest part of the whole scene was the fact that my son never once referred to sex as being gross, the very thing we thought he'd think was the most gross would not be gross at all to my son who seemed to know it all. Then again, I had to keep in mind that what he thought he knew might not be exactly the truth, so the next conversation began with me asking him, "What exactly do you know about sex, and might I add, can you tell me just who told you?" I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had no clue.
That' when he explained to me that he'd learned most of what he knew from the Internet, and the rest he learned from TV, besides just a bit of information he received from his best friend, Billy, who lived down the street. After that, he explained that Billy's dad even had photographs of the act, so that's when it became very clear to my husband and me that we'd waited a bit too late to discuss sex with our twelve-year-old son. We should have discussed such stuff earlier on.
It's not easy for me to admit such things, especially when it reveals my stupidity, but if I don't reveal the truth to you, how will you know what, where or with whom your preteen is learning about sex too? That's why the best advice I can give to you is to never assume your preteen is as naive as you.
I suppose I waited until the age of twelve-years, due to the fact that I was twelve when I first heard the word, "sex,"
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Tips on talking about sex with preteens
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