I’m not a parent yet, but have thought about the future, and reflected on when I was younger.
When I was younger, my parents sat my sister and I down with an anatomy book that was actually pretty good. It had transparent layers with all of the human body systems, and overlaid it was the entire body, then you could flip pages and take of the respiratory system, or the circulatory system, and of course the reproductive systems.
We pretty much flipped though, talked about all of the systems, and then that was that. It was a pretty good way of covering the scientific basics of it, but as I got older I did realize that never was there a talk about any of the emotional, psychological, or peer-pressure related aspects.
Luckily my sister and I both had morally sound friends and acquaintances, and read the news and good books, so consent has always been a, “Well duh,” thing to me.
Looking into the future though, when it’s my turn to do the teaching, I’m torn.
My wife and I lead a middle school small group at church, and hearing and seeing what even fifth graders are exposed to on a daily basis, the sex talk almost has to happen frighteningly early, unless you want your children’s formative ideas of sex to be based on the thoughts, bragging, and media influences of their peers. Do I want to give an early elementary school aged child the sex talk? Not entirely, but I’d almost certainly rather do that than for my child to be hearing what I’ve genuinely heard in a first grade classroom over the past few years (as a class volunteer).
As far as the topics you mentioned, I’ll definitely approach, in this order, the mechanics of sex from a scientific perspective, as well as consent. It is never to early to learn consent. As they grow older, I’ll reinforce consent, and then have a talk about how people don’t talk about the emotional side that comes with it.
I also don’t know, and would pose the question to any parents here-
I don’t want to give my children the, “Go for it! Get all the girls in school!” mentality, nor do I want to shame them and make them feel like the most terrible person in the world when they were to choose to. So how would you go about discussing protection and resources?
What a tricky world we live in at times…
To be fair I also overthink everything…