My eldest is 10. He is an adorable kid. Funny and a born leader. But you know, I could give him a good smack every now and then (just tongue in cheek speak). He's a bit too big for his boots sometimes. But overall he's a pretty cool kid, popular... oh and apparently he's just …
My eldest is 10. He is an adorable kid. Funny and a born leader. But you know, I could give him a good smack every now and then (just tongue in cheek speak). He’s a bit too big for his boots sometimes. But overall he’s a pretty cool kid, popular… oh and apparently he’s just ‘discovered’ girls.
*insert scream here* I don’t want my little boy to discover girls just yet!
Ok, so he’s also be mortified if he found out I was blogging about this, but it’s all relevant, all about sharing my life and my family. He’ll want to read about this in years to come. Well, if he doesn’t, I will want to remind myself about all of these precious (and hilarious) moments in life.
2 weeks ago I was in the kitchen and out of blue a conversation was started by him:
Cruise: I have a girlfriend you know.
Me: Oh, wow, do you? Who?
Cruise: *name* (I thought I should save her from being named on my blog!)
Me: Ok, she’s lovely…. (and then we chatted about her for a moment)
Me: So how do you become boyfriend and girlfriend? What happens? (I was curious. Do they still get someone else to ask for them? Do they even talk to each other?)
Cruise: (screeches) Oh now you’re being ridiculous and don’t you go telling everyone!!!
Touchy. Ooops, I’ve blogged about it. You won’t tell anyone, right? Better not or you’re dead.
Later that evening my husband was going off about how many deodorant bottles were in this house and asked why a 10 year old needed more than him? I made the massive mistake of saying under my breath “because Cruise needs to smell good for his girlfriend.”
The screaming and throwing himself on the lounge was indescribable. I didn’t realise the no telling anyone meant his own father! I swear he was in another part of the house – how could he have heard that! I apologised profusely and all was forgiven. We didn’t talk about the girlfriend again…
Until…
2 weeks later.
My sister-in-law and I were chatting on the phone. She has a 10 year too at the same school. Cruise and his cousin are great mates and play together at school every day (they were in the same class last year, but wisely the teachers separated them this year!).
We were talking about the girlfriend thing as apparently her son has one too. We had a little laugh about it all.
I decided to grab Cruise’s ipod touch and check out his BUMP messages. I know he and his cousin Bump each other lots.
Well, well, well…what did I find? What little monkey’s. I scrolled through message after message where they ‘fought each other’ about whose girlfriend was “sexier and hotter”. Sexy, sexy, hot, hot. The words keep showing on the screen.
My jaw hit the floor and I also had tears rolling down my cheeks with laughter. They were having serious conversations about giving their girlfriends a present and about being excited to go to the school disco because the girls would be there.
Ok, so I realised this was probably not ok. Afterall, they were 10 and we’d not yet needed to give them ‘ boundaries’. Plus, they are at a Catholic School! So boundaries were needed to be put in place.
When Cruise got home I quietly took him to the bedroom and in my calm voice (not my yelling voice from yesterday’s post!) I explained what I’d found.
He went silent. He was embarrassed. I also felt sorry for him!
I explained that it was not ok to use those words about a girl. I was happy for him to have a girlfriend, but she has a Mum and a Dad and they probably wouldn’t like it if they knew he used those words about her. I said you don’t hear your Dad getting around saying those words about women, so maybe we could just use words like “pretty and nice”. He agreed and apologised.
Ok, boundary was set.
I then did the “now if there are any questions you have, or people are saying things at school you aren’t sure about, then ask Mum and I’ll give you the answers you need.” I was feeling all in control and had this discussion in the bag.
He then did the “oh now you’re being stupid and carrying on!!”
Hahahahaha!!! Ok, so maybe we’re not ready for the birds and the bees talk. I know it’s coming. I probably thought it would be next year???
What do you reckon?
It’s only the beginning…ahhhhhh.
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Comments
Kek
Haha! poor Cruise! I think you’ve taken the right approach – let him ask if he wants to know. He may not though; they pick up so much info (right or wrong) at school these days.
My eldest was very curious between the ages of 4 and 6 – probably because my sister and I were both having babies during that time. I was open about how babies are born and he was cool about that. THEN at 6 he asked me “how the baby gets In there”? O_O Luckily, I had Peter Mayle’s book Where Did I Come From on hand, so we sat down and read it together.
He said NOT ONE WORD until the end, when he shook his head and said “I’m NEVER doing that when I’m a grown up!”. I love to remind him of that now that he’s in his 20s…
The others never really asked in much detail. If they had a question, I answered it and tried not to look embarrassed. LOL. The book was on their bookshelf and I imagine they talked together, plus school had the health & human development subject.
But I left the serious teenage safe sex discussions up to my husband. Totally chicken!
Katrina
hahaha I love the “I’m never doing that!” I think I’ll be chicken too when it comes to the serious sex stuff… argh!
Kim Heffernan
Treen you wait until High School – I don’t drink alcohol as you know BUT SERIOUSLY I might need to take it up if I have to go through this x 5. Lucky we have a very good girl but she was asking me about things she had heard and I didn’t even know what one of them was. So much for thinking I knew stuff. Funnily enough my BFF and husband knew. I needed to stay ‘cool’ so I pretended I knew. Home School seems like a good option! LOL
Katrina
Now I want to know what she asked you! lol!
Cathy
I want to know too lol
Melissa
Gotta love what gets around on BUMP! I think you’re approach seems spot on, make sure your kids know you’re there for them if and when they have questions, so far thats what we have done with our eldest (just turned 12).
Im dreading the whole boyfriend thing starting here!
A-M
Oh you are on a roll! I love the sweet innocence of it all. My eldest actually hit me up for it all at the tender age of 8. He goes to an all boys school so he sat me down and said, “Mum, all the boys are talking about it and I am sick of not knowing about it”. That was it. I used lots of National Geographic terminology and as he is a nature/reptile boy he got the gist of it all pretty quick. “yeah, I get it Mum, that’s enough, that’s all I need to know now”. I remember his words. I bet he knew it all before I launched into it. Maybe he just needed confirmation. Your lovely boy knows more than you think he does. Stay tuned for more shocks! A-M xx
I love how there is always something different here every time I visit.
That little twitter link thingy in the comments section!… you’re the bomb!
Katrina
I was telling my Mum today that A-M did the talk with reference to reptiles. Very smart she said. Age appropriate. Will have to think up something like that!
Shayne
Too funny!!! My about to be 13 year old girl has just started going out with a boy of the same age. As cute as it is, it’s SCARY as I take myself back to when I was that age :-S…..I went into her room last week and asked if we needed to have ‘THE TALK’ and she went ‘eeeewwww gross, no way mum’, thankfully she’s still at the shy stage where you don’t really talk to them, and she’s more of a tomboy. She rides a skateboard, wears footy shorts, basketball shorts, soccer shorts…NO SKIRTS cause they’re daggy!! I’ve been told to keep your kids busy with sport, then they tend not to be the ones who walk the streets chasing boys etc. My girl is a rep soccer player and trains 3-4 days a week, plus touch footy when it starts up so I don’t think she’ll have time to find out what the birds and bees do!!! I HOPE!!!!
Katrina
Yes Shayne, I reckon being bust with sport and activities keeps them going. You’re waaay ahead of me though! And girls… no way!
Cathy
Oh gosh, I really don’t want to go there!! Will your husband do the “talk”? – I think it’s only fair we get out of it, having all boys!! And I hope my boys always have pretty and nice girlfriends as opposed to hot and sexy ones bahaha…. Oh I shudder to think what we are in for! Do you think you’ll be the mother in-law from hell?
Katrina
Nah, I won’t be the mother-in-law from hell, but I am a princess in our house so we’ll see! lol! Will you?
Cathy
I don’t plan to be but I guess it all depends on the girl lol
penny barns
so funny our young boys are.
my 12 year old keeps asking me if he has hit puberty yet! as he has heaps of white hairs on his you know whats> yes thats right those things)
i keep telling him that when he has heaps of black ones come ask me then.
in year 6 we had the big sex ed talk at school. should that be happening for you to this year, after that talk it all comes out!
we had a school disco last night and my youngest how is 9 told me when i picked him up.
that all the girls love him. he said he went to the toilet and they were all waiting for him when he walked out. CUTE!!!!!!
love our boys
Pen x
Katrina
OMG! Asking about puberty! Geesh!
Lib
Can’t help with boys unfortunately…I’m very liberal with our girls..they often ask questions as a result of lyrics they hear in songs and when I tell them it’s not “appropriate” we then discuss why and this gives me a chance to wheel out the birds and the bees concepts :))
We’ve also done the mirror examination of their ‘bits’ already (far out that was wild) as they were interested and I figured it was good to use the curiousity as a chance to educate them!!!!
Don’t you love being a parent!!!!!
Kylie
….Birds and bees…Geeze I don’t even know what a ‘bump ” is in the text your using it and not in a 10 year olds world anyway…Lol!@!! Goodness no hope for my 4 kiddos…10 years old next year for us too!
Amanda
Oh hilarious!! I laughed so much ready this 🙂 All fun and games – sounds like you’ve done a great job with what you’ve said though. I taught at a Catholic School and the birds and bees units here in the WA system started around the 11 year old age, although I’m sure by then most of the kids knew everything already anyway 🙂 Kids these days seem to grow up so much faster than when we were kids…
Katrina
They do! That’s why I’m worried!
Jo
Before I forget – thank you – my parcel arrived. Very nice.
My girls are at a catholic school and they have been very pro-active in encouraging us to have “the talk”. Reason being that it is much better for the kids to hear about it from home where (apparantly) you can get the facts straight, as opposed to in the playground where the truth never gets in the way of a good story. And I couldn’t agree more!
My 11 year old was so impressed with our talk last year that she went straight outside and told her father all about it. He didn’t know which was to look because she didn’t hold back. Very funny.
Good luck!
Katrina
Hahaha! Maybe you need to give me a lesson??
Jessica
Haha! I teach grade 5 at a catholic primary school and was so grateful last year that I wasn’t teaching grade 6 after the disaster puberty unit turned into sex Ed. We teach puberty through re and a human body unit and the questions the kids were asking were purposefully controversial and proved they already knew too much! This years grade 6s ate babies compared to the lot we had last year and we put it down to the amount of kids last year that had older siblings that pass on information haha! But anyway I guarantee he knows much more than you think he does, just watch his Internet usage and you’ll be fine. It’s hard to monitor what other kids are talking about but as long as your door is always open so he can clarify those questions and new words haha you’ll be fine!! X
Katrina
Oh my goodness! That’s what I’m worried about – what they already know!
Gail McCormack
I think Cruise is my son’s Twin! I felt quite sentimental reading your story, Happy Days! Play it by Ear. They do think they know everything, so you don’t have to go into the basics, just the guidance side and that’s where the “Play it By Ear” comes in.
Katrina
Hahaha! Yep, I’ll take your advice Gail – play it by ear 🙂
niki
Katrina this could be Reilly 4 or 5 years ago. He would go off like a rocket if we even mentioned his GF’s name in front of him. Ha. Now at nearly 16 his girlfriend is a regular member of our family, which in itself is a bit scary. You did good. We don’t allow “those” describing words for women either. Reilly seems to have a soft spot for the “funny” girls. His girlfriend is hilarious. And they laugh all the time. Oh the joys in front of you, girl. Batten down the hatches is all I can say. HA
Katrina
The years have flown by! You have a girlfriend in the house. That is so cute and adorable 🙂
Beth
I think it’s whenever you feel comfortable. I can recommend a book that might help. – “Hair, there and everywhere – a book about growing up”. I was in the library with my girl a couple of months ago and I spotted it. As I was flicking through it she asked what it was and just on the spur of the moment I decided to borrow it and venture into ‘all that’. We sat and went through it together and then she read it herself. I told her that she could ask any questions and the next morning she said she had an important question….I braced myself! She then says, “So Mum, does all this mean that I’ve had “the talk”? So and so at school has been asking me for ages if I’ve had this talk so can I now tell her I have?”
The joys of parenting!
x
Katrina
Thanks Beth, I’ll look out for that book.
Judie
I’d say it’s pretty much time now for “the talk”. Then again, my youngest son asked me, at all of 6 years old, what a condom was! I had to answer him honestly, and by way of answering he got a lot of information that most 6-yr-olds don’t get. At least that was sorted early!
Nik
You’ve done a great job so far. Trust your instincts. A friend of mine’s son (he is the eldest of three) yelled “That means you and Dad have done that three times … that’s disgusting!!!” Hilarious.
Katrina
Hahahaha love it!
Bronwyn @ Mad Crafty Mama
We are an all girl household here, my girls are 6 and 8. Last week, my eldest was asking about how old you need to be to wear a bra, which was a safe enough topic, but I am dreading the next stage of questioning!
A nurse friend who does a lot of sex ed work used to have all the serious conversations with her kids whenever they were in the car driving somewhere – no escape for them then!