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Show i Tl tvvnai Hun nuw f vv C ., . t i- J J , 1 TT-.- -i. lc This is the age when your guidance is most important not only as to facts but also in the way those facts are presented By EUGENE SCHEIMANN, M.D. with Paul Neimark - I i - . . i . i ' . ' Ok """'"V aT0CT0R, JLy I don't know what to do! I was cleaning my little girl's closet the other night, and in the back I found books about sex ! "They were the filthiest I have ever seen. I just don't know where she got them!" The woman talking to me was in the same panic that so many parents are in when I see them. Their little girl was suddenly not so little any more in this case, 12 years old. And like so many other parents, this woman was unprepared to deal with sex as it confronts children in our world today. What did I say to her? I told her first to be honest and not to make a big scene or punish the child (for she had done nothing wrong) but to ask her when they were alone what she really thought of the "filthiest" book of the lot. Of course, if the mother had been more honest with her daughter while she was growing up. these books would not have been hidden in back of the girl's closet. Yet the important point now was that the youngster had probably memorized almost every page of these books and probably some others as well, so the mother would be fooling herself if she thought .'he could 10 : Family Weekly, November 16, 1969 .1 ... somehow undo what her daughter had seen and read. And basically there was nothing wrong with a reading such books. What was crucial was the attitude that the girl took toward perversions described in them, such as lesbianism and sodomy. Did she understand that these were perversions? This was what I advised her mother to find out. If by chance the girl was not disgusted by most of what she read, then she might do the same herself some day. If, unfortunately, this became the case, it no doubt would be because her parents had concentrated too much on whet they told her and not enough on how. You must know the answers to your questions on sex, of course, for they will come up with some pretty probing questions. Not long ago at the dinner table, Jimmy, son of one of my the friends, casually turned to his parents and said : "Chuck says his parents still make love three times a week. How often do you?" Does this seem like an outlandish question ? Believe me, today many p pre-teene- r's ers are asking such questions more (and provocative ones, too). Don't feel lucky if yours haven't. Because if they don't ask their parents. they will probably ask someone else, someone who may influence them wrongly. In this case, my friend realized immediately that he couldn't ignore the question, but how he dealt with it was what mattered. Obviously, if the father had given him a specific answers, he'd be opening Pandora's box. But the boy's father recognized that the underlying reason his son had asked the question was that his friends, and probably their parents, had equated the frequency of intercourse with still being in love. The boy had swallowed this false idea and wanted to know if his parents were still in love. My friend's answer? "That's a pretty private thing, Jimmy. I wonder how Chuck happened to find out. Do you know?" Chuck, it turned out, had overheard his parents bragging about their sexual frequency to some other couples after some heavy drinking at their summer home. Soon after, Jimmy and his father thoroughly discussed the subject so the boy had a better understanding of sex and his friend's parents. There are several key what areas, of course, in which you must be especially prepared if you are to handle the how properly. With the boy preschooler, for example, he will ask a question such as, "What is this?" singling out his or his father's male organ. And the little girl will ask about her own genital parts. When answering these questions, I prefer to use the proper names for the anatomical parts of the body. It tells the youngster that there is nothing to be ashamed of in discussing the human body. Once the child begins school, his questions turn from his body parts to processes. The girl may ask her mother how a baby can possibly come out of a woman, having casually seen her mother's genital parts (which should be permitted). eight-year-o- ld She sees a baby and wonders how something so large can come out through so small an opening. The answer is that nature has a special way of preparing the mother so the baby is born without injury to either of them. In the early school years, the child will discover the sexual act itself. In many cases, children have seen animals, such as their own pets, having intercourse. Naturally they want to know more about it. Here again, the wise parent answers their questions thoroughly while not opening up new areas. Only give a youngster what he is ready for. You can "prepare a child for life" too murk. Once a child learns to read fairly well, be sure you have available in the family library some of the better books dealing with sex. This serves two purposes. First, it is a way of saying that sex is an open subject. Second, when discussions about sex sometimes become difficult (as they will now and then), you can refer the youngster to a certain book for more information. No famiSy should be without the Kinsey Report. It is as much a part of American education as The Federalist Papers and Moby Dick. If you bring your child up on D. H. Lawrence or John Updike, you need not fear that he will be attracted by such books, which many mothers find in the back of their children's closets. By the same token, don't be afraid of having books with four-lettwords in your home library. Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was banned for years because of just a couple of words. Yet every child past the age of seven has heard these words. There are only several of them. Once you've heard them, that's it. Believe me, it's mainly when you make a big thing about matters that you court trouble. As a child grows into a genuine however, he will try to put together all the knowledge he has in er pre-teen- er, |