Thanks to Educate and Empower Kids for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions are my own. 

Talking to kids about sex is hard.

Have you had that conversation yet? I thought it was awkward when my own parents had “the talk” with me. That’s nothing compared to being on the other side of that conversation as a parent.

In a perfect world I would have ignored the subject until my kids were older . . . much older. But we do not live in a perfect world and kids are exposed to things on a daily basis (no matter how much we try and shelter them) that make them curious.

The sad fact is, kids need to understand how their body works and how they should respond if they are ever faced with an uncomfortable (and possibly dangerous) situation. If you don’t have “the talk” with your kids, their friends will or, worse, they’ll be vulnerable to abuse if you don’t have some pretty blunt conversations with them.

Right about now you are probably thinking something like that couldn’t possibly happen to your child, right?

I promise you, it can happen to anyone. In my former life as a teacher I worked with kids in a residential treatment center. Most of those kids came from good families in safe neighborhoods. I can’t tell you how many times I saw kids come through there who had an abusive situation earlier in their life at the hands of a friend, a family member, a neighbor. Those kids were still dealing with the emotional consequences of that one moment so many years later.

Kids have the right to be kids.

That’s why it’s so important to sit down and talk to your kids about some of the harder topics so they understand that it’s okay to say no sometimes. It’s okay to tell a grown-up to stop if they are doing something that makes them uncomfortable. It’s okay to feel empowered and take charge of your own body.

I was recently introduced to a series of books from Educate and Empower Kids called 30 Days of Sex Talks. This series of 3 books is designed to give you conversation starters and age-appropriate facts to share with your child starting as young as 3 years old.

Each conversation is designed to be simple, parent-directed, and layered over time. I’m a firm believer that we need to give kids bits of information and build on that information slowly over time, especially for some of the harder topics. Kids can understand so much more than we give them credit for but they need time to process the information. A 3 year old is capable of understanding much different information than a 10 year old is. This series takes that into account and allows kids to learn where they are at.

In our family, we’ve tried to start the conversation early and add information bit by bit. I love that the 30 Days of Sex Talks series starts at age 3 and goes through ages 12+ so you can really build upon what your kids know. I have kids that fit in the age range of all 3 books right now so it was really interesting to see the difference between the topics and depth of information in each one as I’ve begun working through the books with my kids.

30 Days of Sex Talk for Ages 3-7 – The first book in the 30 Days of Sex Talks series covers the very basics. It starts with stuff like talking with kids about what is private and what isn’t. Some topics you have probably vaguely brought up with your kids but while going through this book with my (almost) 3 year old and 7 year old I was surprised at how many things I thought I’d talked about with them and hadn’t so it was nice having all the talking points laid out for me.

30 Days of Sex Talk for Ages 8-11 – I have 2 kids in this age range and I loved the variety of topics that were covered in this book. There are conversation starters for everything from the physical mechanics of sex and how pregnancy happens, to the emotional consequences of pornography and poor body image. The conversations starters in this book leave a lot of room for you to include information that’s relevant to your own family values and circumstances. That’s always a worry for me as a parent because I don’t want an outside source determining the values and standards that I teach my kids. This book did a great job of providing the facts and some questions that really get the conversation going while still allowing me as a parent to steer the conversation the way I need to for my own family and kids.

30 Days of Sex Talk for Ages 12+ – I have a child who is turning 12 in a matter of months so I’ve been reading through this book to determine which topics he’s ready for. Several of the topics on this book build upon things introduced in earlier books. There’s definitely more detailed discussion in this book than there are in the previous volumes and it goes into issues that are relevant to teens today like issues with sexting and social media. Some of the topics are harder than others. I know there’s a few that I’m planning on having my husband sit down and talk to my son about just because he might feel less awkward and more open to asking questions when it comes to a few of the topics. There are some great conversations ideas in here. One section encourages you to talk to your kids about the double standard that exist in our culture when women are called sluts but a man who behaves the same way is a “ladies man”. These are important topics and it’s so much easier to talk about them if you have a few ideas at your disposal before bringing the topic up.

I’ve loved that this series covers more than just sex. It covers emotional health, different kinds of love (i.e. romantic love, familial love, friendship), and ways to show healthy affection. These are such important things to talk to kids about but sometimes the hardest thing is knowing where to start the conversation. 30 Days of Sex Talks solves the problem of where to start for you and lets you jump in and start covering the important issues.

Have you had “the talk” with your kids yet? How did you start the conversation?

ENTER TO WIN

Want to have “the talk” with your kids? We have a set of the entire 30 Days of Sex Talks series to giveaway! This includes 30 Days of Sex Talks for ages 3-7, 8-11, and 12+. Check out the full series on Amazon here.

This giveaway is open to the U.S. Winner must be 18+. Please see our site’s Terms and Conditions  for a complete list of our contest and giveaway rules.

Want to be notified when we post a new giveaway? Be sure and subscribe so you don’t miss out on anything.

a Rafflecopter giveaway