A child of about 7 years asked this question to her parents and they are not sure as to how to answer this question. This post is the throw “some” light on the directions. The intention is NOT to provide some answers to the question. Instead, build on an approach to handle many such questions in a healthy and educative way.

Firstly, if a 7-year child is asking this question, it is time to celebrate, as there will not be a better opportunity to educate. However, I would take care of a few things while dealing with it:

What I wouldn’t do:
1. I wouldn’t provide my own answer?
2. I wouldn’t dilute the matter by using any not-so-severe comparison.

What I would do, Explore:
1. What exactly the child is looking for?
2. Where is the question coming from?
3. What is running in his/her mind already?
4. How is it making him/her feel?
5. Acknowledge him/her to bring up the question with courage.

There have been many other questions related to sexual/gender education coming my way:

• Why do boys do su-su standing and girls do it sitting
• Questions about romantic scenes in motion pictures

and many more.

As I said earlier, the intention is NOT to provide an answer to the questions. I hope it does provide access to explore to deal with many such questions.

Now, please share about questions that you faced and how did you handle it, earlier and now.