Teaching Your Child about Sex by Grace H. M.D. Ketterman

Author:Grace H. M.D. Ketterman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2007-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

Time Out

While the preschool years are full of significant developments, sexual ones as well as others, during the elementary school years, other areas are of greater interest to children.

One worried mother came to me about her seven-year-old daughter. Alina was immensely concerned about boys. If her favored one of the month (or week) was not attentive enough, she would brood. When he failed to call her after school, she worried and even cried at times. She was a precocious child and had overheard her parents’ arguments and struggles in their troubled marriage. She had apparently turned to a boyfriend, even at this tender age, for some sense of belonging and caring. She actually played out with him many of the conflicts and uncertainties of her parents’ relationship.

Alina’s story, however, is unusual. It is much more likely that parents will be bothered because Tyrone has hit Matthew in a fight over whose turn it was on the tire swing. Or Stefanie is in tears because Jade played with Emily during recess instead of with her.

Physical Influences

Physically, the growth of the grade school child has slowed to a crawl. The only reason to buy new jeans in an entire season is because Jay has worn them threadbare climbing up and down to his tree house.

There is great emphasis on competition, and fights, especially among boys, are almost universal. Boys speak a competitive language. How he wrestles and how far he can jump is what concerns a boy, not what shade of color goes with this, and how he combs his hair. Appearance rarely concerns a young boy. He seeks out other boys with whom he can compare himself. At a very elementary level he exchanges views on whether his muscles are like those of other boys, whether he can jump or play ball as well as other boys, and whether his penis is like those of other boys. They handle each other—sometimes manually, sometimes through observation, and sometimes verbally.

This in not abnormal, and it need not worry parents unless a child becomes preoccupied. Sexual development is not a nice, gradual, measurable process. It takes place in spurts, just as the entire physical development of a child does. Boys need to belong to a group so they can compare themselves with others and develop a sense of loyalty. Their willingness and ability to contribute some pleasure and strength to that group holds them together. As they compare themselves favorably in some regard, they learn later on to become separate, whole, independent human beings.

During a performance, a successful gospel singer spoke of feeling very inferior as a boy. He described himself as having pimples and loving to eat green onions, so girls were, he felt, repelled by him. He said that unless you’ve experienced it, you don’t know how it feels to have both team captains fighting over you—because neither of them wants you on his team! Many a boy who has not found a place in a group knows how that feels.

Teachers and parents need to be aware of the boy who lacks physical skills and feels inadequate.

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