RelateAble

People often joke about 'The Talk' and I like to say that ideally 'The Talk' shouldn't happen. Rather, it's better for children and in particular for children with intellectual disabilities that a series of regular, gradual, age appropriate conversations take place around s*xuality and s*x as a child goes through various stages of childhood. Children with intellectual disabilities oftentimes need to have new information repeated constantly to help them remember the key learning points.

This is why I advise parents, where at all possible, to teach their child chronologically age appropriate skills i.e. the skills that ALL children/teenagers that age learn. These include closing the bathroom door to go to the toilet, not talking to anyone and everyone about the fact that you are having your period, wearing a bra/bra top, not touching your 'private parts' in public places etc. The harsh truth is that many people outside of your own family, special education school etc. won't care what developmental age your child is or what disability they have - they will just see socially inappropriate behaviour. All these skills can be developmentally adapted to your child e.g. social stories, role play etc. These are the kind of topics we discuss in my 2 hour presentation for Parents/teachers How to Talk to Your Child About Sexuality 🙂