The talk. It isn’t just one talk, it is an ongoing conversation. It is an important conversation, a personal one, and one that will come as your kids start asking questions. My 10 year old started asking so we dove right into it. I knew the time was right and I felt confident to lead this conversation well based off the conversation Brian and I had as we prepared for this.
There’s so much negativity out there about talking to your kids about sex, so I wanted to add positivity to that pool and just say it doesn’t have to be that way. It can absolutely be good, positive, constructive, helpful, sweet, silly and relaxed.
I hope that this episode empowers you to do this well and to have a successful ongoing conversation with your child about sex, kissing, love and all that stuff.
In This Episode Allie Discusses:
How to approach this topic with positivity and not negativity (like culture puts on it!)
The way she approaches her relationship with her daughter and how that impacted this conversation.
Why this specific conversation isn’t a one time thing but more of an ongoing dialogue we have with your kids.
Navigating when the time is right to have the talk and how to start it out on the right foot.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Did you know I have an entire online academy full of things I created just for YOU?
There are so many different things in there. It’s all together in my store or what I like to call the Allie Academy, so if you want to check that out, you should. There’s lots of good resources that have helped a lot of women – tens of thousands of women – get their lives in order. Because when you invest, that’s the first step to succeeding. Free will only get you so far.
So if you’re ready to put some skin in the game, show up, and really invest in the deep dive content that I have to offer, that’s where the online programs come in.
Plus don’t forget, just for Purpose Show listeners only because I love you guys so much, you can use the coupon code PURPOSESHOW at checkout on any of my online programs and take 10% off.
Mom life. We are surrounded with the message that it’s the tired life. The no-time-for-myself life. The hard life. And while it is hard and full of lots of servitude, the idea that motherhood means a joyless life is something I am passionate about putting a stop to. I’m on a mission to help you stop counting down the minutes till bedtime, at least most days. I want you to stop cleaning up after your kid’s childhood and start being present for it. Start enjoying it. I believe in John 10:10 “that we are called to abundant life” and I know mothers are not excluded from that promise. Join me in conversations about simplicity, minimalism and lots of other good stuff that leads to a life of less for the sake of enjoying more in your motherhood. I’m Allie Casazza and this is The Purpose Show.
Hi, beautiful! Welcome to The Purpose Show! Let’s dive into today’s episode.
It’s kind of intense, kind of personal, and I’m really hoping that it demystifies talking to your kids about sex and giving them that important talk, and also changes your perspective on how it is “one talk” and shifting it to it’s an ongoing conversation. And here’s what Brian and I have done so far. Here’s what I did when I actually sat and talked with our child about it because our oldest is our daughter and it just felt right that I would sit and give her this conversation. How we handled it. What I liked and didn’t like and what I learned afterward. So, ready? Let’s talk about this.
This is definitely an episode that needs to be for mamas’ ears only. So, pop those headphones in or come back to this after bedtime. But it’s going to be good. Let’s do it.
Before we get into the nitty gritty about talking to your kids about sex, I just want to say a few things. First of all, this is something that I have done with only our daughter. Bella is 10 years old. She is one of those kids who is wise beyond her years, but also still very childlike. She loves playing with her brothers, even though they’re younger than her. She’s really creative and kind of a whimsical person but also incredibly smart. She’s like a little entrepreneur. The ideas and business thoughts that she has blow my mind for how young she is. She is a unique kid, an anomaly. I used to feel really intimidated about raising her and now I just feel so honored, thankful and excited to raise her.
I think that in parenting things need to look different for each of your kids. You know, my other kids are boys and that doesn’t mean that their “talk” will look the same. Even though they’re all the same gender, they will still have different conversations with Brian and I than each other because I really think that these big parenting moments need to be tailored to who it is you’re parenting. I really do think it matters and it’s different for each kid.
Having said that, I want to also preface with how I want my relationship with my daughter to be. I really want Bella to know that she can come to me with the little things and the big things because if she can’t feel like she can come to me with the little things then she’s not going to feel like she can come to me with the big things as she gets older.
She has shown me that she feels like she can come to me with the big and the little things.
She’ll come to me regularly, daily or throughout the week, and say, “Mom is it okay if I sit here with you and we just talk for a few minutes. I feel like talking,” and she’ll talk to me about what’s going on in the latest book she’s reading, or how she wishes that her friends down the street would come back from vacation so they could play outside. Sometimes she’ll say, “I need to talk to you about something,” and she’ll ask me a really big question about how life works or who God is or why people do scary things to other people. So, I think that it’s going well and I really want my relationship with my daughter to feel that way. I really want to continue that. I want to get even better at that. I want that to continue as she gets into her teen years.
What I think I’m doing right here is creating a space in our home, creating an atmosphere in our family that Bella feels she can come to me and she feels free to ask if she can talk to me. What I feel I need to improve here is Bella has the amazing gift of choosing to come and ask if she can sit and talk with me at the worst possible time. I’ll be sitting on the couch just because I needed to get out of my office.
I have a home office but it is kind of outside of the house. It’s an extension of the garage and it’s got its own walls and doors and stuff, but it is technically a part of my house. So, I’ll get sick of being out there and come in and sit on my bed for a second or sit on the couch for a second and be wanting to unwind and breathe for a moment before I jump into making dinner and doing family things. and Bella will choose that time to come and find me and touch me (which my love language is not touch so it’s irritating sometimes) and just sit with me and want to talk about all the things. And it is so hard not to make her feel like she has irritated me with her terrible timing. I’m just being honest with you guys, I do sometimes, “Oh, what is it sweetie?” She picks up on those vibes obviously.
I really want to work on finding a way around that. Even if I can’t stop and if I want to have that boundary for myself and I just need that space, it doesn’t mean that I have to give her that space every time just because she wants to talk. But even if I can’t stop and talk now, I want to check and make sure that this isn’t something urgent that needs to be talked about right now. And then make time later to sit and talk with her. And then even if I need that space right now, that I make her feel loved, I make her feel valued and I give her a set time later on that I can sit and talk with her or invite her to join me later when I’m making dinner and she can talk to me then while I cook, but right now I just need a minute. I just want to work on that.
I think that’s powerful. Asking what am I doing right here? What do I need to improve here? And just being honest with yourself. I try to do that regularly. I’ll think about if I have a conversation that I felt maybe I hurt her feelings or I just didn’t make her feel valued, it didn’t align with what I want my relationship with Bella to be, then I’ll think about it for a minute afterward and think, “Okay, well why didn’t that feel like it was good? Why did she get her feelings hurt from that? What could I do better? What needs to just be let go, I can’t control every single emotion that she feels. What actually does land on me and my responsibility that I could make better.
Having said all of that, let’s get into the talk. So, I felt so good about mine and Bella’s sex talk. I felt so good about it. It’s something that I had been thinking about for a long time as she started to inch closer and closer to being ready for the talk. I was 10 years old when my mom sat and talked with me and I felt like it was a good time for me. I had that age in the back of my mind, but I was also very ready and willing to adapt.
If Bella had learned things at school at an earlier age than me, then I was prepared to talk to her earlier. It was important to me that I let her know how things work before she learned too much from her peers. But because we do homeschool, that was on my side and I had a lot more time than I think a lot of other moms do. That was a pro for me and my lifestyle.
The kids did go to public school a few years ago for a brief period of time. We didn’t know if that was going to be brief or it was going to be ongoing. We take our school plans year-by-year, so you never know if things will shift and the kids will end up going to school. So, I always have it in the back of my mind “do we need to adjust this?” I don’t think, “10 years old…once they turn 10 I want to talk to them about this.” It might even be later for another one of the kids. It might be sooner. It just depends.
I pray about it. I follow my gut. I am aware of the different circumstances per kid, per year, per age. I’m trying to live “led by the Holy Spirit motherhood” and asking God to be with me in the day and asking Him to give me a knowing and just following that as I make decisions and not having a set age where this is when we talk about this, this is when you get to do that, this is when you get to know this, and letting that motherly/parenthood instinct between Brian and I lead our decisions in these big things.
I ended up feeling so good about our talk. It was a really beautiful conversation. It was a really sweet time. I couldn’t have been happier with how it went. So I wanted to share with you guys why I felt that way about it, what exactly we talked about, how it went, what I used as a guide and why I think it went so well because I think that this is something that people get really freaked out about.
I almost didn’t do this episode because there are so many people who are professionals at this and they share what to do and what not to do. That information is very freely given out there and you can absolutely look those things up. But I really didn’t look anything up about this. I didn’t read books about talking to your kids about sex. I really just went with my instinct and went with what I know of my daughter because I’m her mom. I’m her mom for a reason and I know her better than anyone else. I felt really confident to go with my gut on this, with what to share and what not to share, and how to approach it.
I knew it was time to talk to Bella based on the questions that she had begun to ask me. I knew that she was starting to get curious about how people make babies and she knows that parents make babies. But she was starting to get really curious about how exactly. She was starting to get really curious about things about boys. Not boy crazy or anything at all, but just little things like she let me know that she had a little crush on somebody and she was thinking a lot about and wondering about why do people kiss. Just little things.
This was over about a year’s time where she was asking more and more questions. I knew that it was going to be time soon. She hadn’t come to me directly and said, “How are babies made,” but she was asking little things that were leading into that. She was 9, soon to be 10. I knew like, “Okay, I think 10 will be good and once she turns 10 I’d like to pencil in that time with her and have this conversation.” That’s how I decided that it was time to start thinking about this.
One big perspective shift that I made and that I think is important that we all make as parents is I did not think of this as a one-time conversation that I check off the list (even though I do kind of see how that happens because this was more of “the talk” than any of our other conversations).
Because I had carved out time for it, Bella knew that it was going to happen. We sat down, we closed the door in my room and we just talked. I had a book to kind of guide me, which I’ll share a little bit more about in a second. We were intentionally talking about this. In that sense it was a one-time talk, but I still don’t think it’s a one-time conversation that we check off our list.
I think this needs to be an ongoing conversation. I think it’s incredibly crucial that we create space in our lives and that our kids know we’ve created that space for them to talk whenever they need to talk about something. To answer their questions as they pop into their heads because they’re probably not going to remember them later on when you’re available. I think it’s important to be available at least as much as you can and to have your kids know they can come to you and say, “Mom, I heard this at school today and I was just wondering what this meant,” and give them the answers. If they can ask us, we need to give them some form of the answer. We can water it down for their age and what we feel is appropriate or not, but I do think that it’s important to have an ongoing conversation because your kids are not going to suddenly remember every single thing they’ve been wondering when you’re ready to sit down and talk to them. It’s gotta be an ongoing thing.
I also think that “the talk” is going to get peeled back for Bella and I in layers. I did not sit her down and tell her every single thing that can possibly happen. I didn’t talk to her about hard things in detail, like all the different types and styles and ways of intercourse. I didn’t talk to her about all the details of rape and things like that.
This is an ongoing thing that needs to be talked about as she gets older, as she’s ready, as things come up, as she sees and hears things by accident by being a person alive in our world today.
I think that this talk was more of a start to an ongoing, lifetime conversation. More than just a one-time thing, like a band-aid I rip off where I just spilled the beans and that was it.
Hey friend! I’m interrupting this amazing conversation that we’re having because I wanted to let you know that there’s a whole online academy that I’ve created for all things, overwhelming-mom life. And I don’t know if you knew that.
There are online programs that I have created and refined over the last several years that are world renowned and I’m honored to be able to say that. The content in these online programs are what has landed me on television multiple times and gotten me acclaimed in the world of motherhood, minimalism and simplicity.
There is a course all about decluttering your home and it’s realistic, doable decluttering that is going to make you feel lighter and help you feel like you can actually do this.
There is a program for your life, your schedule, lightening your load, simplifying your days and how those are going and getting some rhythms and routines set in stone.
There’s also a vault with a library of inspiration and pdfs, workbooks, and online workshops that you can replay and watch. Lots of good stuff.
There is a Time Blocking Mom Workbook that’s like $9.
There are so many different things in there. It’s all together in my store or what I like to call the Allie Academy, so if you want to check that out, you should. There’s lots of good resources that have helped a lot of women – tens of thousands of women – get their lives in order. Because when you invest, that’s the first step to succeeding. Free will only get you so far.
So if you’re ready to put some skin in the game, show up, and really invest in the deep dive content that I have to offer, that’s where the online programs come in.
Visit alliecasazza.com/store and check out your options.
Plus don’t forget, just for Purpose Show listeners only because I love you guys so much, you can use the coupon code PURPOSESHOW at checkout on any of my online programs and take 10% off.
I would like Bella to look back and remember multiple conversations, multiple times that we made tea and sat together on my bed and just talked about these kind of awkward things that she was wondering about. I want her to remember multiple talks, not just one talk.
Let’s talk about how to start this conversation. The biggest takeaway that I had for me and how I did this with Bella was I started the conversation ahead of time, not right before I do “the talk.”
I let her know that there was something that I think is important that we talk about soon and we should make that happen together. So, whenever she would ask me something that had to do with this and I knew that it was a question that would lead into our eventual talk about sex, love, romance and all these things, I would say, “You know, I think there’s something that is important that we talk about. I think you are getting older. I think you’re ready for that special knowledge and I think we should make a girl date soon to talk about that.”
What I wish I would have done is I wish I would have made a set date for girl time and put it on the calendar. I think it would’ve made it seem even more valuable to her. I think it would have given her a clear-cut date. Because I would say that a couple times in conversations in the car with Bella and then she would check back in and be like, “Hey mom, when are we going to have that special talk?” And it was like, “Oh crap, I kind of forgot we need to do that.” So, I wish that I would’ve said that and sat down and made an actual set date for this girl talk. If I was doing it over again, that’s what I would do differently.
But I would kind of answer the question like, “Kissing kind of does this…” or whatever the question was that she was asking me. And then I would say, “I think that there’s an important conversation that you’re ready to have with me and we need to make that happen.” I wish I would’ve actually penciled it in and given her a set date instead of making it an open-ended thing that she kept having to remind me about until I finally made it happen.
To recap, one of the biggest takeaways that I had in this conversation with my daughter was I started the conversation ahead of time. I didn’t just say, “I need to talk to you. Let’s go,” and then start the conversation about, “There’s something that you’re ready to know” right before I did the talk. This was an ongoing thing. I started the conversation ahead of time. And I think that set the precedent for how I want my relationship with Bella to be moving forward. This is something we talk about often throughout life. It’s on-going. It’s not a one-time thing.
Then the next thing that I want to say is that I think it’s really important to not be afraid of this conversation or to not be weird about it, awkward, stiff, or timid because let me tell you kids pick up on that stuff. You’re basically teaching them how to feel about sex and how to feel about having big discussions with you as well, so I think it’s really important to be calm, loving and confident. Even if your stomach is turning and you do feel weird and awkward, don’t let them know that because I think it sends a message.
I felt really at peace. I had thought about this a lot. I had prayed about it. I had been talking to Brian about it. We knew how this was going to go. That I was going to have the main conversation with her and that Brian would come in at the end and sit with us for a moment and ask Bella if she had any questions. Because it’s important to us that our kids that are the opposite sex of us feel comfortable to talk to us about sex, intimacy, marriage, intercourse and difficult things with each other.
I didn’t want to set it up where the boys talked to Brian and Bella talks to me because I just don’t think that’s healthy. What if something happens to one of us, you know, and now we’ve set a precedent to where it’s awkward for Bella to talk to Brian about things and what if I’m not here anymore. It was really important to us that it goes both ways. But I do see the value in Bella and I sitting alone together and talking about this, and then Brian came in at the end and it was perfect. It was beautiful and really good. She did ask him a couple of questions and he handled it great. He was really calm and loving to her and gave her enough information that fit her age. He was totally in on this conversation and it was really great. So that’s another thing that we did.
But going back, the biggest thing was not being weird, timid, or awkward. Full disclosure, it’s really hard for Brian not to get weird, timid and uncomfortable because this is his little girl, this is his baby girl and it’s really hard for him that she’s growing up. It’s really hard for him that we had to go get a starter bra for her the other day. It’s really hard for him. It’s just weird, new and different, and it’s out of our element and that’s okay.
But I think the key is to not make it seem like you’re super uncomfortable and so timid and afraid of this conversation because you’re teaching your kids how to feel about having these discussions with you. You’re setting a tone that is going to decide if they want to have these conversations with you again in the future or not.
You’re teaching them how to feel about sex. And I want Bella to realize sex is created by God. It’s beautiful. It’s comfortable. It’s normal. It’s okay. We can talk about these things and then I can teach her the other things I want her to know about sex and the boundaries around sex as I talk with her about it. So, don’t be afraid or timid or stiff. Your kids will pick up on that.
Another thing that I think was really helpful for me is that I had a book to guide me. I actually am not going to share what book I got just because I had looked and looked and wasn’t really happy with my options. The Christian books…some of them I found were really stiff and actually had undertones of shame, and I went to a private Christian school growing up and I got plenty of that tone and it did not serve me well at all. I really didn’t want Bella to pick up on that tone. I just wasn’t happy with what I found.
I had gotten some really great recommendations but I didn’t want to order the book online. I wanted to look at it in person. The options at Barnes & Nobles were just so-so. What I ended up doing is I got a book that had drawings, not actual pictures, which I liked. It was a really sweet book where it had drawings of butts, boobs, “pee-pees” and “wee-wees” and all of that silly stuff that kids just think are hilarious.
They were drawn and they were all different shapes and sizes. It gave a picture of, “these are our bodies and God made our bodies and it is what it is and we can talk about this.” It made it silly because they were drawn and they were sketched kind of funny. It brought humor to the conversation. It wasn’t like pictures of bodies, which I would feel was inappropriate. I really liked that.
And there were some things in the book that are not what I believe about gender and people and sex, so I looked through the book beforehand and dog-eared the sections that I wanted to skip over when I sat with Bella. And I think that’s the most important part.
I loved having a book to guide me, but I think it’s less important to freak out about exactly what book it is, how perfect it is, and research, research, research when you’re putting off this conversation that needs to happen. Don’t overthink the book. It’s more important to look at every page on your own before you talk with your kid so that you can edit out anything that you don’t want to talk to your child about just yet. Eventually I will talk to Bella about all of these extra additives about sex and gender and all of that, but I just didn’t feel like it was time for all of that yet. I just wanted to talk to her about how reproduction works, how sex works and what it is.
So, I personally, like I said, liked the drawn pictures. I let her giggle at the boobs and butts and the wieners, and all of that and we giggled together, but it also opened the floor to questions and she asked them freely and it was really good.
By letting her take those reins and letting her ask the questions that came to her mind, it let me know where she was at and what information she was and wasn’t ready for. So I almost live, right then and there in our talk, was able to decide, “Okay, she’s asking this but not that, so I think she’s ready for this and not that.” I answered the questions she asked, and the way that she asked them and the questions that she did and didn’t ask, let me know what she was and was not ready to learn.
I didn’t lay every single thing out and say too much. I let her guide how far the conversation went and we will talk again later when the time is right for her to know more.
So that’s how I did it. That’s how it went. Those are the key takeaways. I hope that this episode empowers you to do this well and to have a successful conversation, a successful ongoing conversation with your child about sex, kissing, love and all that stuff.
It went so well. It was a really sweet time. I will always remember it. It has opened the floor for Bella to talk to me about anything and everything. It was a gift and it went so well.
I think there’s so much out there about grown parents remembering their talk with their parents and how terrible it was and how awkward it was. There’s so much negativity out there about talking to your kids about sex, so I wanted to add positivity to that pool and just say it doesn’t have to be that way.
It can absolutely be good, positive, constructive, helpful, sweet, silly and relaxed. And I want to encourage you in that.
So, go and be empowered! Pray and follow your parental gut instinct. Talk to your spouse. Talk and decide what do we want here? What do we want them to know? How do we want this to feel? Let it be an ongoing thing that you are empowered to talk about with your kids.
This was an episode of The Purpose Show. Did you know there is an exclusive community created solely for the purpose of continuing discussions surrounding The Purpose Show episodes? And to get you to actually take action and make positive changes on the things that you learn here? Go be a part of it. To join go to facebook.com/groups/purposefulmamas.
Thank you so much for tuning in. If you are ready to uplevel and really take action on the things I talk about on my show, and get step-by-step help from me, head to alliecasazza.com. There are free downloads, courses, classes, and ways to learn more about what the next step might look like for you and to focus on whatever you might need help with in whatever season you are in right now.
I am always rooting for you, friend! See ya next time!
+ show Comments
- Hide Comments
add a comment