My four-year-old took off her underwear and started rubbing herself on the floor!
My two-year-old can’t keep his hands away from his penis!
I walked in on my eleven-year-old daughter masturbating under the sheets!
I found my fifteen-year-old looking at pornography online and masturbating!
Masturbation: there are few topics that make parents (or people) more uncomfortable. A little girl starts rocking on the arm of a couch and has a happy face. A little boy starts talking about how his penis changes when he touches it. Just talking about these examples makes us want to run the other way.
As parents, we are often looking at masturbation, genital touching or fondling through “adult eyes”. We bring our own guilt and assumptions to the situation, but to a child, masturbation and genital touching (at a young age) is a normal part of discovering the parts of his or her bodies and the good feelings that come from them.
Now, if you’ve read some of our other writings on XXXchurch on this topic, you’ll know that we don’t think that masturbation is God’s best, and that masturbation can even lead to a number of destructive behaviors, life and relationship patterns.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be incorporating some advice about what to do—in an age-appropriate fashion—when tackling the subject of masturbation and your kids. The key to remember here is that we need to avoid bringing shame into a situation where it doesn’t belong. At a young age, self-exploration can be very normal, and punishing, threatening (by lying about the repercussions), scolding, humiliating, embarrassing or shaming them can bring unneeded confusion and pain. As parents, we’ll need to learn how to take opportunities to teach our kids how to respect and treat themselves, their bodies and their sexual desires in a way that honors God. So stay tuned!