Learn more at http://www.SaberHacer.com - Answering children's sexual questions can be uncomfortable and difficult. Family psychologists explain what to say, how to say it, and why it's important to answer those questions.

Video Transcription

Edgar Villamarin: Children normally start asking questions about sex around five or six years of age. They may seem innocent. They may seem funny to ask adults, but they are actually, they are the beginning of working and processing that information and things that they think or you know they are exposed to. I want to emphasize the issue of communication, and the communication starts early And that if that communication happens early, and by that I mean five, six, seven as they grow up, we answer the questions. The teenagers would be in a better position, more trusting, more comfortable to ask deeper questions. Stephanie Goldman: How we've talked before about our private parts? And how -- it's our body, it's our private part, it's never really too young to talk to your children about sex. When they are children, you can start teaching them watch for certain body parts as you would, their nose, their toes, their fingers at the same time you teach them, this is your vagina, this is your penis. And if you do so in a very matter fact way, very casual, and non-formal way, and let's them know that it's okay to talk to your parents about body parts, it sets the stage for later on for them to feel comfortable to turn to their parents and have these conversations. Female Speaker: Okay, you say. So what kinds of questions is my five-year old going to ask, and how am I supposed to respond? Edgar Villamarin: Typically children ask instant questions like just, mummy what do you have in your tummy? Or mummy what are they doing? Say something about that they watch on TV or why do they kiss, or does that hurt? Simple questions like that, that are not necessarily associated with pleasure or erotic feelings because they are not there. So the task that we have is to answer the specific question. If they ask mummy what do you have in your tummy? It's a baby, it's going to be your brother, it's going to be your sister, end of the story. It's factual. You don't have to get emotional. You don't have to oh, my god, she is going to go and have a baby now, No, that's not what they are thinking. They are not associating this with erotic feelings.