If school closures amid the COVID-19 pandemic left you homeschooling your kids, or just having more time together at home, you may be looking for opportunities to talk with them about sex, sexuality, and relationships. But where to start? We’ve got you covered.
Tip Sheets
Using TV to Talk With Your Children About Sex
While you’re watching TV, you can use storylines about sex and relationships to spark conversations and find out how your kids might make decisions if they were in the same situation. It’s a good opportunity to share your values, expectations, and hopes for them, as well as understand their values, perspectives, and needs.
Talking About Consent and Healthy Relationships at Every Age
This tip sheet gives you specific ways to talk with your children to help them have healthier relationships (and sex, if they’re older).
Glossary of Sex Education Terms (March 2020)
In March, the Future of Sex Education (FoSE) Initiative — a partnership of Advocates for Youth, Answer, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) — released updated National Sex Education Standards to support K-12 educators in providing sex education. The standards are very helpful for schools and sex educators, but a lot to go through for busy parents. So, we’ve highlighted the glossary, which includes real-world definitions for modern terms related to sex and relationships.
Activities
Watching a show with your kids? Try playing this bingo card to spot when the people on screen treat each other in healthy ways (BINGO!). You can each play on your own card, and then compare your cards to see how your ideas of healthy relationships are the same and different as a way to spark conversation.
Young people can learn while they search for words and phrases like birth control, clitoris, consent, and safe sex. You can ask them if they have questions about any word they find. Then, you can answer — or if you don’t know the answer, you can look things up together on plannedparenthood.org.
Websites
Our website has a ton of information on how to talk about different sex and relationship topics to kids at different ages, including videos and other resources in both English and Spanish.
SIECUS: Sex Education, Homeschool-Style
SIECUS is a national sex education advocacy organization. They’ve got a great resource list to help parents and educators who are social distancing and serving as sex educators at home or virtually.
AMAZE offers a great online library of sex education videos for middle-school-aged kids and their parents. It just launched an Askable Parent Challenge, offering resources to help you navigate kids’ questions about sex and relationships while at home and social distancing.
Articles
Rewire: “Are You Home Schooling Your Kids? Don’t Forget Sex Education”
This article includes a great list of books about sex, puberty, and relationships for kids of different ages.
Huffington Post: “So, Your Kid Is Masturbating While Your Family Isolates. What Should You Do?”
Toronto-based sexual health educator Nadine Thornhill shares how to deal with your kid masturbating while everyone is home together, which can both be tricky, and an opportunity to talk about masturbation with them.
Books
For Parents
“Talk to Me First: Everything You Need to Know to Become Your Kids’ ‘Go-To’ Person about Sex” by Deborah M. Roffman
This book helps parents become the most credible and influential resource about sexuality in their children’s lives.
“Making Sense of ‘It’” by Alison Macklin
This book is for both parents and teens, and it offers trustworthy, gender-neutral advice on how to be safe, informed, and honest about sex and sexuality.
”There’s No Place Like Home… For Sex Education” by Mary Gossart (for ages 3 to 18)
This book offers a friendly and practical guide for conversations about sex and sexuality from the experts at Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon.
For Children
”What’s in There? All About Before You Were Born” by Robie Harris (for ages 2-5)
This book follows the stages of pregnancy and childbirth in a matter-of-fact and comfortable way.
“Sex is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg (for ages 8-10)
This cartoon book provides information about all things bodies, sex, and puberty for kids, as well as their parents.
”Let’s Talk About Sex” by Robie Harris (for ages 9 and up)
The 20th anniversary edition of “Let’s Talk About Sex” provides information on texting safety, birth control, and LGBTQ topics.
For More Information
Visit our Resources for Parents to see more resources about sex education, and visit our COVID-19/New Coronavirus page for information about the pandemic.
—Miriam at Planned Parenthood