Human relations

Sexual exploration

I have a five-year-old daughter who is becoming curious about her sexuality. I also have an 11-month-old daughter. I found my five-year-old with her hand down my baby’s diaper. What does this mean and how do I handle this situation so it never happens again?

Natural and healthy sexual exploration during childhood is an information gathering process wherein children explore each other’s bodies by looking and touching. When your five year stuck her hand down your baby’s diaper this may be seen as quite normal in that often children may touch the private parts of familiar adults and children, as part of their natural and healthy exploration process. However, their may be concern if your child touches private parts of adults/children not in the family or unknown family members after being told “no.” Asks for others to touch her private parts. If this was to occur you may want to seek professional assistance for your child, to help determine if your child has been sexually abused from a medical personnel, counselor or social worker that has experience in assessing sexual abuse.

One of the most healthful ways to address your daughter’s sexual exploration for you as the parent not to feel horrified or alarmed by your 5 yr old daughter’s behavior, this is completely normal. Some tips that may help you and your daughter are as follows:

Prepare yourself.
Discuss your child’s sex education with your partner, and any other adults involved in the child’s parenting, and decide on a consistent approach.
Reassure yourself that your daughter’s touching your baby is not a sign of sexual deviancy.
Use this experience as an opportunity to talk about the bodies of girls. Tell her that touching someone else’s body should be avoided because genitals are private.
This may also be a good time to talk about unwanted sexual touching. Tell your child that no one is allowed to touch her genitals, and that she should let you know right away if someone touches her genitals.

Most important is for you as the parent is to stay calm and only give your child as much information that she is able to understand.

Veronica E. Stovall
Extension Associate
Center on Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy and Parenting

Separating during visit

I am planning to visit my daughter and 8- and 5-year-old grandchildren to celebrate their upcoming birthdays. I haven't seen them in three years but communicate via phone and packages of surprises.

My daughter and her companion of 15 years have decided on separating. They are going to tell the children mommy is getting an apartment so she, I and they can spend time together. After I'm gone they will tell them mommy is going to stay in the apartment because she and daddy are breaking up. I feel like a scapegoat. What do you think?

We don't provide advice on individual situations, but we can provide research-based information that you can use to determine what is best in your situation. Here are some tips for talking with children about divorce that are supported by research:

Honesty is important. Give your child simple, honest answers so he/she will know what's going on.
At the same time, avoid giving your child details that he/she doesn't need to know. Think about what information is appropriate for a child to know and what information is more adult information. This will depend in part on your child's age. For younger children, a short, simple explanation will suffice. Young children can understand that you couldn't get along, so the other parent is living somewhere else. Even though older children can understand more of the complexities of the situation, they don't need to hear the gory details. Infidelity is probably adult information that a child doesn't need to know about.
It is very important to avoid bad-mouthing the other parent. If the other parent has a problem that led to the divorce (addiction, mental illness, etc.), you can be honest with your child that the other parent has some problems he/she needs to work on without going into the details or putting the other parent down. Criticizing the other parent may lead to alienation from both parents. Supporting the child's relationship with the other parent is usually in the child's best interest.
Find another adult (friend, counselor, family member) to talk to about your feelings about what happened instead of sharing these feelings with your children.

I hope this information is helpful. For more information, please see our list of books and other resources on divorce-related topics.

Kim Leon
Assistant Professor and State Extension Specialist
Human Development and Family Studies

More human relations questions and answers

Updated 5/21/08