At the beginning of her recent discussion with local parents, child sex-education expert and Baltimore resident/teacher Debbie Roffman shared her dream: one day, parents in this country will become their children’s primary source of information on the topic of sex.
The country may still have a long way to go, but Baltimore—thanks to Roffman—just got a little bit closer to that goal.
The free event, sponsored by the Downtown Baltimore Family Alliance and held at Hampstead Hill Academy in Canton, gave parents a chance to ask advice of one of the country’s foremost experts on child sex-education. More than 50 local parents came out to hear Roffman speak, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Roffman—whose latest book, Talk To Me First, guides parents on how to become their kids’ go-to resource for information about sex—systematically refuted every excuse offered by the audience as to why it was seemingly so difficult to even broach the subject with their children, let alone discuss it at length.
She empowered parents with tools for approaching the conversation—and, in the process, helped them overcome their fears and realize that a discussion about sex should be handled in the same manner as any other discussion parents have with their children.
When curious children want to know where they came from and how they got here, “They are often looking for answers that have nothing to do with sex,” said Roffman. “You have to look at everything through their eyes.”
Roffman’s message was that, when it comes to sex education, children look for the same things from parents that they do with any other topic: Affirmation, information, clarity about values, limit-setting, and guidance. If a parent approaches the topic in that context and doesn’t overreact to the subject matter, she said, the awkwardness goes away. Parents are then left with simply another opportunity to reinforce the things they’ve already been teaching their children.
She also said parents should not wait for their children to ask about sex. The most important part of the process is giving children the information you want them to have first, so that anything else they hear afterwards—whether from playground chatter or the Internet—has to be measured against what they learned from their most trusted source: you.
Wendy Hatch, who has children ages 6 and 11, said she didn’t realize it was a good idea to begin having these conversations with her children now.
“I haven’t had these questions from my six-year-old yet,” said Hatch. “It’s great to know that it’s okay to talk to him when he’s this young.”
When parents complained about what their kids are watching, reading, and listening to, Roffman reminded them that, while it is fine to bash the media, at the end of the day, parents have the final say on what their children are exposed to.
“Who controls the car radio?” she asked. “You do.”
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