Any parent knows that there will come a point when your child asks questions about topics such as periods or where baby’s come from. Answering these questions is easy enough if you are having the discussion with a child just starting puberty but when they are asked by a younger child they are not so easy. So how do you answer them?
Well when my 2 year old wandered into the bathroom whilst I was putting a sanitary towel in my underwear and asked what I was doing I told her that I had to put a special pad in my underwear. To which her response was: “why?” So I told her that it was something ladies had to do sometimes. I thought that I had got off lightly until my daughter decided to look in the toilet whilst I was pulling up my trousers and got very upset to see blood in the toilet. So I explained that it was ok and nothing to worry about, and that it was what happened to ladies when they hadn’t got a baby in their tummy. She asked if that was what the pad was for so I said yes. She accepted this answer then went off to play with her toys.
I know that some people will disagree with me for giving my daughter this much information given the fact that she is two but I believe that the best way is to be honest with your child. Obviously the amount of information you give them is up to you but I simply gave my daughter enough information to answer her question in a simple format that she could understand.
I personally find it easier to be honest with my daughter because if you lie you have to remember what you told them as they remember. Also if take the other approach and try and hide it one of two things will usually happen either their curiosity will mean that they will try to find out what you are hiding, or if they have a problem or something like managing periods when they are older, they may try to hide it themselves, be embarassed and not know how to handle it.
Due to alot of the media hype about child abuse some parents are too frightened to discuss issues such as periods, in case the child repeats what they have been told and the parents get accused of sexually abusing the child. Pregnancy never really causes too many problems explaining unless the child asks how the baby got into your tummy; to see how I explained pregnancy to my daughter see: Pregnancy and other Children.
As I have already said how much you tell your child is up to you but I would definately say that honesty is the way to go. Just make sure that you explain it in a way that they can understand, also don’t worry about what people will say as if anyone asks you can tell them what happened, chances are you are not the only person in this situation and they are also wondering how to handle the situation, because not many people will openly say; “how do you explain …….to a ….year old?” mainly because they are worried about what people will say or think.