Transcript for
Talking to children and young people about sex and their bodies

Narrator (00:02): 

Welcome to the Emerging Minds Families podcast. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:05): 

I’m Nadia Rossi and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. We would like to pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We also pay respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their ancestors and elders past, present and emerging from the different First Nations across Australia. 

(00:29): 

In today’s episode, we are speaking with Kirsty, Schools Coordinator at Shine SA. And she’s going to be sharing with us ways we can talk to children about sex and their body. This episode contains adult themes around sex and consent. If you have young children with you at the moment, you may like to pause and listen to this in your own time. 

(00:48): 

Welcome, Kirsty. It is great to speak with you today. 

Kirsty (Guest) (00:50): 

Thanks for having me. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:51): 

Kirsty, I remember being a kid and having questions in my mind about my body and sex and maybe wanting to have those conversations but not knowing how to start those conversations with my parents or the adult in my life. So, I’m wondering if you can talk to us a bit about how a parent can show their children that they are someone they can talk to and ask these sometimes awkward or uncomfortable or seemingly embarrassing questions. 

Kirsty (Guest) (01:24): 

Yeah. Sure. I think regardless of the questions that our young people or children are bringing to us, we want them to always be thinking about us as a resource and a source of really accurate information regardless of the topic. I think we also really always want our children to feel safe enough to talk to us about any question that they might have. 

(01:42): 

And I think it can be helpful to frame conversations about sex and sexuality as something that’s not different or outside of conversations that we would otherwise have, that it can be viewed or held by us as just another conversation. And if they have questions about sex or conception or sexuality that we receive that question in the same way we would question about the weather or what’s for lunch. 

(02:06): 

I think thinking of it inside of conversations that we have with our children can be helpful in not making us worry more about this being something different or needing a drastically different approach. Just something that we can chat about whilst we have our morning snack or mom does the dishes or whatever else in the same way we would any other conversation. 

(02:27): 

I think it’s really important not to overthink it and framing it that way could perhaps be helpful. You know your children so well, keep your language simple so you are talking with them in ways they can understand or learn from you. I think often when we hear the words sex or sexuality or how a baby’s made or whatever is young people bring, we can suddenly find ourselves worrying about all the things we know about adult sex and sexuality and then we find ourselves perhaps thinking our children are asking more complicated questions than they are. 

(03:01): 

So, I think it can be really helpful to make sure we understand the questions our young people are asking, and we could do that just by asking extra questions to find out specifically the information they’re looking for, finding out what they already know. You could have a little one just as a loose example, a small child might ask why a baby is in there and perhaps point to a mother’s stomach, and we might then assume that that young person is now asking us how babies are made, how did it get there? 

(03:29): 

And then we go into a bit of a panic about this potentially being a conversation about sex, but really the information the child was looking for was that the baby’s not ready to come out yet because it’s not big enough or something as simple as that. So, I think finding out what they know already or just trying to be as clear as you can about the question they’re asking can be helpful and prevent us from bringing all of our adult experience and history and information into that moment. 

(03:53): 

And then perhaps we might find ourselves more anxious or more embarrassed, as you mentioned, or less sure how to have those conversations. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (04:01): 

It’s really about meeting the child or the young person where they’re at. And that takes me to a question about language and how a child’s age can come into play in the language that a parent uses when talking to a child about sex. How do you feel the parent can respond to a child at different ages or stages in their life? Is that something that parents should keep in mind when responding? 

Kirsty (Guest) (04:25): 

Yeah. Absolutely. I guess it goes back to what we said to begin with and that this is just another topic of conversation that you’re having with your child or your young person and that you are going to, as the parent or carer of that child, have the best understanding of what language or concepts they can learn and receive at any age and stage of development. 

(04:43): 

If you think that what we are always aiming to do is just to provide accurate information that can answer the question that’s been asked, and in the same way you would explain to a young child how an apple grows on a tree, that’s probably a terrible metaphor given that we’re going to talk about babies, but you might say a tree grows in the soil, a big tree grows and second come the apples. 

(05:04): 

So, it’s really a simple concept. You’re not going into all the science that I don’t know about apple trees when you’re communicating with a young person and it’s really the same, you’re going to choose language and concepts that align with your child’s understanding. If you don’t know the answer, which is sometimes the case, again, we can go back to prompting questions. Do you know about that? If we need a bit of time to answer those tricky questions can find out together. 

(05:30): 

But always as the expert of that young person’s development, you will inadvertently use language that matches what they’re able to understand. And I think young people are very good at letting us know when they’ve had enough information. A small child might just walk away or lose interest or as a teenager might directly tell you to stop talking because that’s things they don’t want to hear from their parent or carer. 

(05:53): 

But they’re really good at letting us know and we can check in with them for their understanding as well. And just say, “Tell me what you heard me talk about or do you understand about that now or have I answered your question?” 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (06:04): 

So, what I’m hearing is that it’s really about coming to the child at their age. I know as a parent I have been asked the question and the inevitable question that I think all parents get asked, where do babies come from? And in me, I think I have taken that inward gasp and go, “How am I going to answer this correctly for my daughter who is 6?” I’ve got another daughter who’s 4. And then how does the answer to this conversation change when they’re 10 and 13? 

(06:34): 

I wanted to talk a bit more about that and how you mentioned, I think, previously that it’s almost not about overcomplicating the question and coming to your child at their age and stage. If you could share what a parent can do when they are asked that question. 

Kirsty (Guest) (06:48): 

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think it might be helpful perhaps to give an example of what that might sound like across childhood and into adolescence. And like you say Nadia, it is about meeting the young person where they’re at, whatever age or stage of development that is, and using language that they can understand with the goalpost really just being to provide an answer to their question using accurate information. 

(07:11): 

And then if we don’t know the accurate information, we can seek it and then either find that information out with our child or get back to them. But I think holding in mind that the goal is always to provide accurate information and also to be really non-judgmental and receiving and welcoming of those questions. 

(07:26): 

But when we think about children and young people, early years, the questions are more likely to be around conception rather than sex. So, this may happen because someone in their family is pregnant or they notice pregnant people out and about, and that natural curiosity that we talked about prompts them to wonder about this complicated process. 

(07:45): 

So, if you were talking with a toddler, for example, the information might be as simple as a baby starts to grow from a tiny egg that’s inside the baby’s mom, and that might be enough information. Now, that information is accurate. We’ve at that time left the sperm out of the equation. But that might be because one piece of information for the 2-year-old is enough to satisfy the curiosity and also gives them a base on which to build some further information as they grow. 

(08:11): 

So, a 4-year-old, for example, might understand that you need two tiny things to go together to make a baby, and that’s a tiny little egg and a tiny little sperm and they grow together in the mom or you could say they grow together inside the mom in her uterus. So, we’ve explained the mechanics of conception, I suppose. And again, for a 4-year-old that’s likely enough to satisfy their curiosity. 

(08:35): 

People don’t have as much discomfort with that part of the process as they do when the children start to ask how the sperm and egg might get together. And I think that’s probably the part where we start to get a little bit uncomfortable sometimes. And again, that’s because we’re bringing, perhaps, our ideas of adult sexuality, our histories and experiences into conversation, which we don’t need to do because sex and sexuality to children is a very different thing. 

(09:00): 

And again, we remind ourselves that we’re responding with accurate information for their age and stage. So, you might have a child who is perhaps 6 or 7 that is curious about the process of how sperm and egg get together. So, we’ve already taught them some good things. There’s a sperm, there’s an egg, they grow in the uterus. So, we’ve got conception and implantation, which is how pregnancy happens. So, this is good learning. 

(09:21): 

And then we might say something like “Grown-ups can make a baby by having sex because sex is one of the ways that a sperm and egg can meet.” And then I guess you’ve landed yourself in the territory of, “Well, what is sex?” So, at this point we just have to run with it knowing all those things we’ve already talked about and we are going to give a very simple brief explanation as to what sex is for the purpose of conception. 

(09:45): 

So, you might say something like sex is something that grown-ups do in private if they want. A grown-up with a penis and a grown-up with a vagina, do it together. Sex means when the penis gets hard and goes in the vagina and the sperm comes out of the penis and travels through the vagina to that tiny leg that we’ve already learned about. 

(10:03): 

Children of that age as well may also be ready to learn that there’s other ways sperm and egg can grow together, particularly if the story of their conception involves assisted reproductive technologies. So, a sentence could be something like, “There’s other ways sperm and egg can get together. Sometimes that can happen outside of the uterus with the help of the doctor, and then the doctor can push the sperm and egg once they’re together inside the uterus for the baby to grow.” 

(10:28): 

So, I know it can be tricky to think about having these conversations. But we hope also that before we’re talking about people with penises and people with vaginas bringing sperm and egg together, that we’ve had loads of conversations about what our body parts are, what they’re called, why they exist, what their function is, and we’ve had an opportunity to normalise all of that for our children. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (10:49): 

I’m learning so much from this. And I really loved that you said that it’s okay not to know. As well as a parent, I think sometimes we feel like we have to answer all the questions and have all the answers for our child, and it’s okay to go, “Hey, I don’t actually know that. Let’s try and find it out together.” And I never even thought about the different ways of conception and even going into that as a conversation with the child when they’re ready and to let them know that is possible as well. 

Kirsty (Guest) (11:20): 

You raise a really good point, Nadia, about the importance of having conversations with our children about different ways things can happen and when they’re really little, that might be talking about the ways in which families can be different, but as we start to talk about bodies and how babies are made, it’s important to make conscious attempts, I guess, to include these different ways that babies can be conceived, how they can be put in the uterus in different ways, how they can be birthed in different ways, how a parent might be someone who didn’t carry the baby themselves. 

(11:51): 

So, any chance we get, I think, to talk with our young people about the diversity of these experiences is really important because as they start to grow and we talk more about sex and more about topics like consent, these things become really important in helping our young people engage respectfully in these interactions. 

(12:10): 

I think we’ve talked a bit about the conversations around how babies are made, but I guess the conversations around how people have sex is a different conversation. And you asked earlier about how these conversations shift as the children go into teenagers and off to middle school and high school. And I think in that space, again, and this comes back to being clear about the question that is being asked, your young people might have questions about sex. So, how do people have sex and why do people have sex? 

(12:40): 

And I think this is a different discussion. Hopefully, our young people have already learned about penis in vagina sex because we’ve taught them how babies are made. But the questions might start to become what is sex and how do people have sex and why people have sex? And just as we were speaking about diversity just now, this can be particularly important for young people whose sexual orientation falls outside the default, and so they might have questions about how people of the same gender might have sex. 

(13:06): 

So, I guess as our young people grow, it’s important to broaden the definition of sex. And in order to move it away from only as something that is helpful for conception to move it into a space where they understand that sex is something that people do for pleasure, it’s between consenting adults and people do that because it feels good and it can include lots of different activities and behaviours, usually touching sexual body parts in lots of different ways. 

(13:34): 

So, I guess just holding in mind that those are perhaps two different questions. And when we’re talking to young people, that’s not the question they’re asking, for the most part, and as we move into adolescence, it’s much more likely that their understanding of why sex happens, hopefully starts to include pleasure. We should certainly have conversations around pleasure with our young people and that it can be many different things to many different people. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (13:56): 

We’ve talked about how a parent can respond when a child asks them questions about sex. But I’m wondering if a parent wanted to start a conversation about sex with their child, how could they do this? 

Kirsty (Guest) (14:09): 

It’s really important because the research tells us that young people want and expect the trusted adults in their lives to start these conversations. So, sometimes you will hear parents say, “Oh, I’m just waiting for them to ask,” or “I’m happy to answer the questions when they bring them to me.” Or they worry about bringing information to their young person that maybe they’re telling them information they didn’t need to know yet or ask for. 

(14:31): 

But it’s really important that as well as receiving questions from our young people, we are able to start conversations about sex and sexuality. And there’s lots of ways to doing that. Hopefully, we’ve done all the prework. And so, this is a comfortable space for the most part. But as we know, particularly as children grow into teenagers and they’re developing their identities and they’re relying very heavily on their peers, they’re less inclined, we think perhaps to have these conversations with us, but we know from the research that they still really want this to happen. 

(15:00): 

So, there’s loads of ways you can go about it. It can just be questions, it can be noticing things in community, noticing things in youth culture that they bring to you when starting a conversation around that. So, questions are a great place to start. They could be as simple as what do you know about this particular topic? You can ask with curiosity because the young people will have information if you let them bring it to you or you ask them to be a teacher for you, that’s a great time to uncover any misconceptions, provide information, maybe talk about people who are positioned to help with healthcare or reproductive healthcare in particular. 

(15:35): 

It could be something on the TV. There’s so many Netflix series that the young people watch that have these themes of sex and sexuality. So, they are great talking points to talk about a character can give the young person a sense of safety. Perhaps it’s not about them, but you can be having a conversation around a situation you’ve seen on TV. It could be a TikTok trend that is gorge or not. And just asking your young person about that. Just finding these ways very naturally to weave a topics of section sexuality into conversation because it is a significant part of their experience in their life. 

(16:09): 

And so, we wouldn’t leave out any other significant experience, we hope when guiding our teenagers in particular. So, this is just another one that we can find opportunity or teachable moments to throw in there and have a chat about. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (16:22): 

I love what you said about asking questions, because I think a lot of the time that’s when a parent can find out actually what does the child want to know? It’s sometimes not like, “Okay. We’re going to sit down and I’m going to tell you about sex.” It is asking those conversation-sided questions with your child or young person and just to see how far they want to take it. I’m wondering just if this would change from primary school or middle-aged children. 

Kirsty (Guest) (16:50): 

I think the approach remains the same. And fortunately for us as parents, it takes some time for them to move from toddlerhood through childhood to their teenage years and by design likely because there is a lot of learning as parents that we do across those years. But really, the goal remains the same. So, we want to be understood as a good resource for our children and young people. 

(17:14): 

We want them to trust that we will have and provide accurate answers to questions. And that if we don’t know the answer, we will find it out for them or with them. We want them to feel like they can come to us and won’t be judged for their thoughts or feelings. So, all of those things remain the same, as does the provision of the information and as they grow, I guess, the complexity of the questions just grow with them and they move through these sex or sexuality topics in ways that are appropriate and align with the development of their own bodies and brains. 

(17:47): 

So, I guess the short answer to your question is that not really anything changes. But the long answer is more about having to take the time to really understand the experience of the young person as they are living it and as it is for them, and then being willing and able to receive that without judgement and then respond with some accurate information that supports them to then go away and make sense of it. 

(18:12): 

It can be a great opportunity as they grow as well to talk about family values or beliefs that you hold at the core of your family, but in providing this accurate information that supports our young people to then go away and make sense of it inside whatever beliefs or values they hold for themselves or otherwise. So, I guess, Nadia, thinking about how the goal and the approach really remains the same across any age or stage. 

(18:37): 

In terms of the questions becoming more complex, this is happening for good biological reasons, and that’s because our young people by entering puberty or going through puberty or completing their puberty and with that, with the sex hormones that the endocrine system is flooding their body with comes sexual feelings. And they’re also likely to have their first sexual experiences at that age when they’re moving through middle school. 

(19:01): 

So, of course, questions will come because they are having more experiences relating to sex and sexuality than they may have had previously. Of course, social media we need to talk about as well, because as they move into middle school, it’s becoming very prevalent or pervasive even in their lives. And we know that it’s used by young people for education purposes as well as entertainment and that they rely heavily on social media for their social connections. 

(19:29): 

And as they develop their independence, they’re looking to these platforms to help them learn about who and how they are. It’s also the time when they’ll likely encounter pornography. Research tells us that half of all 13-year-old boys have seen pornography and half of all 15-year-old girls have seen pornography. And we know also that young people, whilst using their curiosity, can sometimes lead them to pornography. 

(19:52): 

We also know that it’s used by a lot of young people as a sex education tool, and this can be problematic because the messaging in mainstream pornography has really changed from years past and it includes a lot of violence and mistreatment towards women along with many other problematic messaging, things like no consent, bodies that all look the same, the pleasure of the woman is not really part of the presentation. So, this can be problematic for our young people at a time when their brains are growing and they’re laying down neural pathways. 

(20:20): 

So, this is also in the conversation, you can see how these things start to show up and how conversations will become more complicated because the space and their lived experience has become more complicated. We really hope as they move through all of these experiences that the groundwork that we’ve done is paying dividends at this point. But even if it’s not, it’s still really important to engage in conversation and to start these conversations with young people. 

(20:45): 

And even if there’s been limited conversation until now, it might be a chat around social media, which then leads to talking about sexualized imagery, which may lead to talking about sexting or sending nudes or sextortion or a number of other things. So, just looking for opportunities to engage with your young person in their life and in their life as they understand it, and then hopefully finding ways to provide that accurate information we talked about and some guidance around how they might make sense of that for themselves. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:13): 

What I’m hearing, Kirsty, is that it’s an ongoing conversation from toddler, from even the moment that they can talk and recognise body parts to then the development and the questions about more detailed body and sex and then sexuality. It’s really that ongoing conversation that we shouldn’t, as parents, be aware, is just going to be an open conversation we have with our children throughout their life. 

(21:36): 

And I’m wondering when we think about that conversation, whether the parent has prompted it or the child, is it important that there is a follow-up conversation that maybe the parent checks in with their child later? 

Kirsty (Guest) (21:51): 

Ideally, the conversation is ongoing from birth, like you say. Because we really want to, as much as we can normalise all of these conversations, bodies are normal, everybody has body parts, they all have a name. Sex is the way babies can be made. Babies are made in the world all the time. These are just things that are part of the human experience. 

(22:12): 

And so, like any other thing that is part of the human experience, we hope that these conversations can become as boring as talking about what’s on the grocery list. Not because it’s boring, but because of the normality of it. So, I guess the ongoing nature of the learning is really important. But in terms of a particular conversation that you may have had, whether prompted by you or by your young person, I guess follow up just depends on what the nature of that conversation was. 

(22:38): 

Because some things that young people are seeking answers for will have ongoing implications and some won’t. And so, a check-in I guess could be a really helpful strategy. And it can be as simple as when you’re having the initial conversation saying to your young person, “Do you want me to check in with you about this later? Or are you good now?” And the young person might say, “No. I’m good.” Knowing that if they have a new question that comes to mind, they can come back to you and receive the same accurate non-judgmental response that you’ve been modelling since birth. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (23:09): 

Kirsty, you’ve given us such amazing tools for parents and conversation starters and ways to have those conversations with your children at different ages and stages in their life. I’m wondering, are there any no-nos to talking to your child about sex? 

Kirsty (Guest) (23:25): 

As long as you’re sticking to the facts, you can’t go too far wrong. Any question that a child asks you can be answered in a developmentally appropriate way, which is just the language for meeting and where they’re at. So, you’re okay there. But I guess the one thing which probably doesn’t need speaking out loud, but let’s do it anyway, is just that it’s probably not good practice to share personal stories about sex or your sexual activity apart from the really obvious truth that young people do not want to hear about their parents’ sexual activity, ever. 

(23:55): 

But it also helps them to learn the difference between what is public and what is private. And that’s a message that we teach, again, from birth because it relates to the notion of consent. But it’s important that the young people understand your sexual activity is private to you, and it’s something you do consensually with other people in private places. So, it’s not a topic of discussion that you are wanting to have with your young person. 

(24:18): 

So, again, just another opportunity for learning. But that doesn’t mean we should shame our children if they ask questions about your sexual activity, because that again is just their natural curiosity. Welcome that. Be like, “Wow. I can see you’re really curious about that.” And you can usually answer a question about like, “Have you ever, or do you and dad,” whatever the question is, you can probably just answer it as a “what is that thing” question. 

(24:41): 

And you might just say, “Look, I’m not going to tell you what me and dad do, because that’s private, that’s private things we do together.” But you might want to know about what this is and you can answer that question. So, again, it’s just another opportunity. It’s not that it’s a no-no, I guess. It’s just another opportunity to teach young people about these things that are really important to their safe and respectful engagement in relationships across life. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (25:03): 

It’s really about welcoming the question and then the way you frame your responses, leaving that open to your child knowing they can ask you anything. But then also as a parent, knowing the way to respond to personal and private conversations and teaching that. I know we’ve spoken a lot about language around sexuality. I am wondering about language in particular when we are naming our body parts and how do we know when it’s the right time to introduce the correct names for our reproductive body parts to a child? 

Kirsty (Guest) (25:33): 

That’s something you can definitely do from the get-go, because it achieves that thing we’ve talked a lot about, which is just normalising talking about our bodies because body parts all have names and we can use them right from birth. So, whether it’s bath time or nappy changing time, using correct terminology to help young people understand the different parts of their body is really important. So, we can probably just do that right from birth. 

(25:57): 

But if we haven’t, that’s okay too. But it’s good to teach that correct or anatomical language because that is a protective factor for young people. We know that that young people who know the correct terminology for their body parts are less vulnerable to abuse because the perception can be that that young person is someone who has received consent education and has some knowledge of that and may feel empowered around reporting abuse. 

(26:23): 

So, it does actually make that young person less vulnerable to be able to report accurately using correct names for their body parts. But we also know that people have funny little names for these body parts as well, and that’s okay too. But it’s probably worth saying to your young person who is using these words, whether that’s something that you’ve introduced or something they’ve heard and adopted for themselves. You can just say things like, yes, sometimes we do call that body part our willy, but it’s actually called a penis. 

(26:50): 

So, just using appropriate moments or as it comes up to remind them of the correct name, even if you or they continue to use it interchangeably, that’s fine. But being really sure that they know the correct word for that body part. It also can be perhaps linked to the idea of shame or embarrassment that we talked about earlier. We don’t want our young people to think that they can’t call their body parts their correct names because there’s something shameful or embarrassing about that. 

(27:14): 

So, I guess using the correct names is another way to avoid shrouding all of this in mystery and concern and taking active steps to normalise the idea that we all have bodies and body parts have names. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (27:27): 

It’s comforting in a way to hear that as a parent, I’m hyper aware of using the correct names, but knowing that if my child chooses to use a funny name, it’s that conversation of “Sure, you can call it that, or you may have heard it that this is the correct term,” just so that they know that and have that protective knowledge about their body part or something that I never even thought about. So, thank you for sharing that. 

(27:54): 

Kirsty, how does it support children when a parent engages in conversations with them about sex and their body? How does that support a child’s wellbeing? 

Kirsty (Guest) (28:03): 

Every interaction we have with our children, young people teaches them something, they’re always receiving messages from us as we talk about these things. And I guess whilst it feels like an enormous responsibility in those moments, we can really empower our children, young people with the words and approach that we choose or depower them. We can either increase their knowledge and skills or make them more vulnerable. 

(28:27): 

And sometimes when we are depowering or making more vulnerable, that’s really inadvertent because we just haven’t thought through perhaps the consequences of not being willing to have this open dialogue about sex and sexuality. But I think it is helpful to hold in mind that everything, every time we interact with our child or young person, they are receiving information from us. 

(28:48): 

And to take that through to an extreme, if you chose not to talk at all about sex or sexuality or body parts with your child because you may believe very firmly that that’s in their best interest and is protective, and you could potentially make your young person more vulnerable and get the outcome, which is the opposite of what you were hoping for. 

(29:09): 

So, these things are happening all the time to us as parents. We hope we’re doing things in the best interest of our child, but inadvertently outcomes, perhaps not what we were hoping for. So, I guess, holding in mind that every time we talk about sex, sexuality, young people are receiving messages from us whether those messages are body positive and sex positive and empowering or body shaming and increasing vulnerability really depends on how we approach those questions and how we respond. 

(29:38): 

So, I guess engaging in conversation with them about their sex and body in all those ways we’ve talked about really does some pretty powerful things. It reduces their vulnerability. It increases their knowledge. It makes them more confident. They can become advocates of self more easily. So, many, many positive outcomes if we’re willing and able. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (29:56): 

Kirsty, I’m wondering. We did mention that you work with Shine SA and I’m wondering if you can tell our listeners a bit about Shine SA and how people can access Shine SA’s resources. 

Kirsty (Guest) (30:08): 

Absolutely. So, Shine SA is an organisation in South Australia that provides comprehensive and integrated sexual and reproductive health services and programs. So, we have clinical services available at both Woodville and Hyde Street in the city, and you can go there for your clinical or counselling services, including general practise. 

(30:27): 

I work for the Shine SA schools team. And so, our job is to write curriculum and train teachers and educators in schools to deliver comprehensive relationship and sexual health education. So, I guess we have parents listening hopefully and something that parents could do to check whether this curriculum is being delivered at their child’s school and perhaps advocate for that to happen if it’s something that they’re hoping the child has access to. 

(30:52): 

Because what we know is that schools play a really significant role in delivering education around sex and sexuality to young people. And it is integrated inside our curriculum mostly as part of the health and PE Australian curriculum content, but also in wellbeing programs. And this is really helpful to our young people, because it just ensures that they can all receive consistent and age-appropriate education like we’ve been talking about. 

(31:17): 

And schools are really well positioned to support parents to do this work for and with their young people. We also have a really fantastic library at Woodville, our Shine SA library, and there’s a vast collection there of books on all topics of sex and sexuality. And it’s free to join. So, parents are welcome to visit us at Woodville. Visit the library. It’s a really beautiful space you can bring your children in, and we have particular boxes of children’s books they can sort through and read and lots of beanbags and comfy spots for them to do that. So, that’s a really great resource for listeners to know about as well. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (31:48): 

Thank you for sharing that. I have been to the library. It’s lovely. Thank you for talking to us today about the really important topic of talking to your child about sex and then their body. Kirsty, I’m wondering if you could leave our listeners with one thing today, what would it be? 

Kirsty (Guest) (32:03): 

Nadia, it would just be to really enjoy curiosity that your children and young people have about life and all things. Our young people are such keen observers and learners, and I think being able to receive their questions in the ways we’ve spoken about so without judgement is just a wonderful way to affirm their interest in their bodies and sexuality as just really normal and wonderful and clever and helpful. 

(32:29): 

So, I think that’s one thing I would want to say. And also, if you can, or your position to or choose to support the provision of your child or young person’s relationship and sexual health education program at their school, because it’s really important that our young people learn that there are many people who can support them through life. Many people who can provide accurate information. They need help or health advice. There are people apart from their family that can also support them well. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (32:56): 

That is a wonderful message to leave on. Thank you so much, Kirsty, for talking with us today. 

Kirsty (Guest) (33:01): 

No worries. Thanks for having me. 

Narrator (33:03): 

Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au/families for a wide range of free information and resources to help support child and family mental health. Emerging Minds leads the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.