I love the lists of books on how to handle this. I understand that your husband probably said this in a knee-jerk reaction type of thing to his 4 year old saying this. But please do not let your daughter go on with the notion that sex is a bad word. I am an ECE teacher and children begin to get sexually interested in things at early ages-some more than others, this is healthy and normal. The explanation of sex may be difficult however like sugar said letting her know your views on sex is the most important. Good luck with this!

Kids asking about sex really bothers me.

she doesn't know what the word means. i would tell her that "sex" isn't a word for 4 year olds to use and she isn't to use it again (very casually as in "no it won;t rain today but it might be cloudy). if she said she dreamed she was solving for pi you would tell her what that meant either, it's not really interesting (or appropriate) for 4 year olds. this conversation isn't really about sex so don't go there. it's about being 4, a misunderstanding and getting a little attention.

I agree with Kendalheart. I know it will be hard but do not pass this opportunity to explain in age appropriate ways that it is not bad and that she can come to you if there is any inappropriate touching, etc.

sex is not the same thing as inappropriate touching. telling her: "no one has a right to touch you anywhere your bathing suit covers" is enough at 4 as far as innapropriate touching goes.

this child over heard an adult conversation (maybe on tv) and is just throwing out the word randomly. if she said "i dreamed last night that i was a republican/atheist" would you really think she knew what that implied?

the questions that usually come up with kids are "where do babies come from" or "how does the baby get in the mommy's tummy". frankly, if your 4 year old knew what sex was and you didn't tell her you would have a real problem on your hands.

I think you don't really need to bring it up again if you don't want to. She'll probably have forgotten the whole thing by the time you come up with something good If she brings it up again, then you can apply everything those articles taught!

OMG. Ok. The post above licket split is not from me. The mane is spelled the same and everything. Same icon. Dearsugar, is this a mistake? Or is there really another me. I am positive I didn't write that. There are spelling errors. I don't spell stuff wrong. Dear, can you fix this? It's weirding me out!

name* I do however, make typos.

Hey - a gentle rain - we are looking in to this, but for now have just unpublished the comment.

My mother (who had 6 kids) said you give kids as much information as they're ready for. They'll ask a question about sex and you give them the barest bones answer. If they ask another question, you give them the simplest answer to that. You keep going as far as they ask because they stop asking at the point where they're satisfied and aren't ready for any more information. Each child is different.

But telling them that sex is a bad thing or a bad word or for adults only is what fosters the 'bad' and the 'guilt' feelings that so many people have about sex as adults.

It starts young. Younger than anyone realizes.

...arent we all just mammals

...or did you think you were something special ?
l.ol babe : )))

yes kids [well some] are going to be "knowing"
in the future

protect them...
dont publish it

shhhhh

respectfully disagree. there are topics that are appropriate for children and topics that are not. this is one of the reasons there is a movie rating system. the topic of sex is not appropriate for a 4 year old unless you are telling them there is the male sex (boys) and the female sex (girls).

no 4 year old is going to casually come up with penis entry on their own. they are curious about babies and that's it. why would guilt be associated with adult activity? is gulit associated with voting? that's only for adults. how about driving? different life stages have different limits.

this was just a word thrown out there by a child that probably still sleeps in a pullup. she doesn't knwo what she said and actually didn't even ask a question. she made an inappropriate comment "there were lots of boys and i had sex with them". surely we can all agree that is inappropriate for a child.

It's odd for a 4 year old would even know the word

...was she upset ?

Honestly, I would tell my child "Sex is what two adults do when they love each other, like me and your daddy." And I would leave it at that. Children are smarter than you think, and there is no need to evade the question or give the child the notion that sex is a negative thing.

I think it's odd that she brought up the topic in such a specific scenario. I don't think it's normal for a 4 year old to be having dreams where they have sex! Has she been watching TV shows or movies with adult language and content? Maybe you need to keep her viewing more age appropriate? Is it possible an older kid at school has been saying inappropriate things to her? Has she walked into the room when you and your husband were being intimate? I think these are all things you need to consider. You don't want her to grow up believing sex is "a bad word", but like lickety split said, some things are appropriate for children, and this is not one of them in my opinion.

Good points GRL IN THE WORLD.

The child didn't dream about having actual intercourse. She went on to describe how she played games with the other kids in her dream.

I don't see how any of this is alarming.

it's not alarming. she obviously had no idea what she was talking about. i think an appropriate response would be to laugh it off, ask if she even knows what she's talking about, and then wonder where in the world this kid heard about that specific scenario. "sex" should never be a bad word or an inappropriate topic for kids of all ages to come to their parents and ask about. of course, i don't think that a parent should just volunteer all the birds and the bees talk when they're four, but if they ASK or say something like this little girl was doing, always be honest, don't dodge the question, and like dearsugar said, always give factual information.

i'm not a parent, but i was a kid who was too embarrassed to talk about sex with my parents because my older sister made fun of me for not knowing what sex was. and for a long time, i thought tongue kissing was sex. i never went to my mom for ANYTHING, and habitually hide things from her still because the birds and the bees talk was such a taboo subject. i didn't even tell her when i got my first period. and yes, i attribute all of this to the embarrassment associated with the sex talk. and no, we are not a religious family. sex is just such an "icky" subject for parents to deal with that most would rather not.

a warning to parents who think sex is an inappropriate topic for young kids, even four year olds: they'll find out from someone else a lot worse if you don't tell them first about this weighty and important topic. sex is EVERYWHERE, you can't dodge it. i ended up figuring out what sex was from a porn tape left in a vcr (in my older sister's room, my parents weren't that clumsy).

Oh man. I was so startled to read this. Good advice though. If I ever have a kid, I need to write down the names of these books. I don't want my child to end up like those four 5th graders who had sex in the middle of class while the teacher was out. (Anyone else read that news story?) It just sickens me that kids are using sex like this without even knowing what it really is and what it really should mean. Bleh.

note to people with no children who think they know anything about raising them: bahahahaha!

lickety - I assume you do have children, so do you have any advice for those of us who don't?

I am with Katie and girl on this. She spoke the word sex and that she was with a lot of boys, she also stated when asked that she did not know what to do and was playing games with them. I am not saying to give her a detailed lesson but explore what she meant in more detail -- kids that age should only be wondering where babies come from -- period. Of course, you can just shhh it.

I would probably ask her how she knew the word sex. It's probably a personal preference on raising children, but I think 4 is too young to even know the word sex.

I think talking to kids about sex at an early age is important. I read on msnbc.com that there were 4 5th grade students that had sex in an unsupervised classroom! Something these days are making kids mature physically at a faster rate. Telling kids sex is "bad" makes it that much more appealing, since candy is bad, and too much tv is bad, blah blah blah.

"Party like a rock star, pound like a porn star, play like an all star!"

Talking about sex with children is a good idea. But at age 4 no way.

I would personally be more interested in finding out WHERE your 4 year old learned that word! Theorists say that children ages 3-6 go through a Phallic (genital) stage of exploring, so most likely she inquired about seeing a child at preschool or daycare and she got that word as part of the answer. I would talk to whomever her caregivers are and tell them, "That kind of language around my child is unacceptable at this age." If she learned the word from you (the parents) I would advise you to be a little bit more discreet.

However, if a child inquires about such a thing (no matter what age) I would give them a very brief, honest answer and leave it at that until the child was mature enough to understand.

lickety: the lady on supernanny has no children, and i think she knows more about raising kids than a lot people who have kids. you don't have to be a parent to know how to raise a child.

like dearsugar said: it's never too early to talk about sex in an age appropriate manner.

Is very hard to be age appropreate when the kid is 4. As a parent Id advise you to seriously look into what your child is doing be it on tv or at daycare or with whomever. She had to hear sex somewhere kids just dont make up those things and being her dream was with boys I bet she over heard a convo and didnt know what sex was and assumed bc it was boys and she plays with boys that that is what is it. A Simple Sex is what Mommys and Daddys do to make babies is sufficeint I think and only if questions are asked. I would only bring it back up to find out where she heard that from. Def a cause for alarm in my opinion since NO ONE should be talking bout something like that around a child period.

I am surprised that your daughter had a dream regarding sex and boys. I am thinking that possibly, she might of seen it on a tv show, or maybe over-heard it in a conversation? She seemed to apply the word correctly as she explained the dream. If my child was to say that I would question them in a round about way trying to pry and find out where that idea came from. She is really young to talk about sex, therefore I might say "sex is a word used by adults only, I will be happy to explain it to you when you get older"