Having "The Talk"

A precocious (for the sake of this post, we'll call him precocious) 4th grader got into some hot water recently for telling some of the older children on our kids's school bus where babies come from. Spoiler Alert: he didn't even have his facts straight!  Sam and Brie did not hear Mr. Precocious, but this event did prompt Tony and me to pause and wonder, "Should WE be having 'The Talk' with our 8- and 6-year-olds?"  We considered the pros and cons of teaching them the basics of the birds and the bees and then agreed that, even though they're on the younger end, we wanted them to hear it from us first.

A quick search online helped us find this site online, and we took a cue from it on a few books to check out. The first book we got from the library (see below) had WAY too much information for Sam and Brie's ages.  And, not to be picky, but the illustrations weren't cute.

We thumbed through a few other books, including this one, but there was still WAY too much info...

so we went back to the internet and decided to choose a book for preschoolers.  We knew we wanted to avoid TMI and have the book focus on anatomy and how they should be proud of their bodies.  This one was perfect and, because it's meant for around age 4, it conveniently leaves out exactly how the sperm reaches the egg.  We left it to the kids after we read the book to ask that question, but they didn't.  One day they will, and we think that will likely be the more appropriate time to give them more facts.

What's lovely is that Sam and Brie were far more interested in things like how a baby grows in the womb, how it gets nutrition, why we have a belly button (and is our belly button a private part).  It was a sweet moment with them--no snickering over what body parts are called and being giggly or uncomfortable about the unknown/awkward.  Instead--perhaps to our credit--they were interested in the book because it's science and they love feeling like little doctors.  Knowledge is power, right? I am certain that one day soon we will really miss when they were this young and innocent!

In the meanwhile, we hope that we have opened the doors of communication, so they can ask us more questions about their bodies, sex, babies, etc. as they grow older.  My hunch is that the next talk (and the next and the next) won't be this simple to deliver or as elementary in content...wish us luck!!

P.S. Happy Valentine's Day! More on our celebrations soon!