Benefits of Having Sex Talks with Children

[Dr. Amy Lang] So I want to talk for a little bit about why sex talks are protective. So talking with your kids about sexuality is really important in terms of helping them manage their pornography exposure. They will see porn. Don’t tell yourself that they won’t. One hundred percent, they will see porn. Like, if you lived in a log cabin in the middle of Montana and had no screens or anything around you, sure, but that’s not going to be anybody’s lifestyle. So when you talk about sex, it gives your kids a frame of reference so they understand, like, “Hey, this is what healthy sexuality looks like. This is what I’m going to just say ‘normal’ sex looks like.” It gives them an understanding that this is what healthy sexuality looks like. This is how this works. Talking about consent, different sexual orientations, that sort of thing. So that’s the first important thing about talking with your children openly about sexuality. The next thing is that it decreases sexual—it decreases curiosity. So if your kids know that they can go over here to this awesome book, they can watch these great videos. There’s wonderful, safe videos for kids about sexuality now. If they know that they can talk with you, they have this space and this information that helps them to understand, again, like, this is how sex works. So This is what relationships look like in a safe way.