This book serves as a guide for parents with children from infancy through six years of age, to help parents recognize how their behavior influences their child's sexuality. When adults bring intention and thoughtfulness to providing sexual health education to their young children, they can establish healthy attitudes toward sexuality and prepare their children and themselves for sexual topics that will arise in later years. While there are many books on sexual health written for parents of teens and young adults, there are very few written for parents of young children. But the early years are crucial to sexual health, and what parents do and say is of the utmost importance. The goal of this book is to give parents practical tools to proactively teach young children about sexuality, and the confidence to use these tools. These include: Factual information regarding sexuality in general and normal developmental behavior in this age group; Language to use when talking with kids and realistic ideas for how to teach; The opportunity to explore parents' own anxiety around teaching about sexuality; and A recognition that parents are not alone in their situation, that they are understood, and that there is help available.
Laura Hancock, PhD, has been studying sexuality from different perspectives for over 20 years. While in graduate school, she did research on reproductive and stress endocrinology and enjoyed teaching undergraduates. Later, Dr. Hancock completed training to teach sexual health education to elementary, middle, and high school students. In this process, she found that information was lacking for children in early childhood and set out to provide such resources. Toward this end, she developed her own curriculum to teach parents and caregivers of children from infancy through kindergarten and began teaching through private classes and speaking engagements. Karen Rayne, PhD, has studied and worked in education for over 20 years, with the last 15 of them focusing on sexual development and sexuality education. Dr. Rayne's PhD is in Educational Psychology. The majority of her professional work has been in writing for and training sexuality education professionals and writing about sexuality for youth and adult lay readers. She has published two books through the APA broadly, both with Magination Press. Dr. Rayne is the Executive Director of a small nonprofit, UNHUSHED, where she creates resources to support lifespan sexuality education. They are publishing a curriculum for preschoolers (3-year-olds) through 5th graders. This positions their organization as publishing materials for the youngest children currently available.
Introduction: Why Now is the Best Time to Start Sex Ed Part I: What You Need to Know First Chapter 1. What is Sexuality? Chapter 2. Self-Awareness: Your Own Sexual History, Feelings, and Values Chapter 3. The Parts and What They Do: Anatomy and Physiology Chapter 4. Sexual Identity Part II: Ages and Stages of Learning About Sexual Health Chapter 5. Infants (1 to 12 months Old) Chapter 6. Toddlers (1 through 3 years Old) Chapter 7. Kindergarteners (4 through 6 Years Old) Chapter 8. The End Game (Exercise) Part III: What You Can Do... Chapter 9. What You Can Do...When You're Faced With Surprising Behavior Chapter 10. What You Can Do...When You Can't Be There Chapter 11. What You Can Do...to Plan for the Future Resources
