It is normal for children to ask questions about their environment, and reproductive issues were not going to be less. In this sense, some questions can be embarrassing for their parents or caregivers. When a child asks where babies come from, we must remain calm and answer naturally, without beating around the bush and without lying.
Sexual training is part of the child's education and we must give them the appropriate explanations, always adapting to their age. So if you want to know how to explain to a child where babies come from, then we offer you a series of guidelines to do it correctly.
Be natural
When your child or a minor in your environment asks you where babies come from, the first thing you should do is keep calm and not react with nerves or hesitation. He understands that the question is completely legitimate since procreation is something that children end up perceiving from their environment.
Forget the taboos, that will only create distance in communication. The child will perceive that it is a forbidden topic, so in the future she will not ask any more questions and will feel that he could not count on his parents to resolve that doubt. This will mark a much more serious problem in the parental relationship that goes beyond its formation in terms of reproduction and sexuality. And we don't want this to happen. That's why it's so important to know how to explain to a child where babies come from as it will be a turning point in its development.
Don't lie, tell the truth
You don't have to lie to children, you have to give explanations adapted to their age and that is where the challenge of adequately answering a question like this lies.
Adults should be aware that lying is rather a solution to their problem of perceiving themselves incapable of answering a question, rather than a way of being decisive when faced with the child's demand. And children don't deserve that, They deserve to know the truth.
So we will avoid:
- count the stork story. That will only create more confusion because the child may ask, for example, “where did the stork get that baby from?” and one lie leads to another and we know that "the lie has very short legs". Avoiding the innocence of a child in this way, in addition to being unfair, is not pedagogical.
- Along the same lines, it is inadvisable to say that children are collected from the rubbish or from the door of a church.
- And of course avoid saying that babies come from the kisses or that they go out for him belly button of his mother.
Explanations such as:
- "Dad has a little seed that he puts in mom and a baby is formed that will grow in mom's womb for 9 months. And then he comes out of mom through a hole that is the vagina ”.
Adapt the explanation to the age of the child
It is important to develop a speech that adapts to the level of understanding of the child according to his age.
The youngest children, 3 or 4 years, they settle for knowing that babies grow inside their mother's belly and that when they are 9 months old they come out of it. It may help to show them pictures of a fetus inside its mother's womb. Some ask how the baby got inside its mother. If this happens, we will continue to explain it to you, but always in a very basic way so that you understand it.
Instead, children between 7 and 8 yearsThey demand more elaborate explanations and will want to know about the involvement of men and women in procreation. You can use diagrams that represent the male and female reproductive systems, and support you in stories and documentaries that help you explain reproduction in a simple way.
Points that need to be clear
- Reproduction is an act that is performed between a woman and a man. with the consent of both.
- to procreate, the woman and the man must “be older”, with an age of maturity. In other words, they must be clear that it is not something that children can do and that for this they must grow up and become adults.
- to have a baby mom and dad must love each other very much.
- Babies can only be had by men and women who are not related, that is, they cannot be between brothers or cousins, uncles, etc. even though they love each other a lot. Clarifying issues such as incest early on is entirely appropriate since children may believe that love is the only condition for having a baby.