Talking to Your Kids About Sex: from Toddlers to Preteens: A Go Parents! Guide.(Book Review)

TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT SEX: FROM TODDLERS TO PRETEENS: A Go Parents! Guide. Lauri Berkenkamp and Steven Atkins. (2002). Norwich, VT: Nomad Press. 128 pp. ISBN: 0-9659258-3-8.

I was browsing at a favourite bookstore and came across this book. As I picked it up I wondered if we really need another book about how to talk to your kids about sex. There are plenty of books on this subject already and I have a number that I feel comfortable introducing to parents. However, I will be adding this book to my list of recommended readings partly because of its look. I realize that the books I have, while full of good information, can be intimidating to some people. They are written with page after page of text and have few or no visual breaks. This was typical of books published in the 1970s and 80s but even Debra Haffner's (2000) often recommended From Diapers to Dating." A Parent's Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy Children is text heavy. The occasional box or title does little to break up the print.

There are parents who will not hesitate to pick up a book that is print heavy. I know many parents, however, who either are intimidated by a book that looks academic or who don't have the time to read a lot of content in order to get to the key points. As well, people who are in their teens or twenties have been raised on books and magazines that have a different graphics style than books that were printed in the pre-computer era. This book attempts to capture the new look and will be more likely to appeal to young parents or those who don't feel up to tackling a lengthy text.

So how does it look? There is a lot of print but every page is broken up by some visual effect. There are many cartoon-like drawings of people scattered throughout. Shaded boxes and text in different fonts break information into reasonable chunks. Bold titles identify the topic of a paragraph or section: "It's All About Body Parts: Truth in Labeling," "Bathroom Talk: A Toddler's Second Language," "It's Potty (and Body) Time! Setting Body Boundaries," "Keep the Questions in Context: Blow Job vs. Snow Job," "Peer Pressure: The Good, the Bad and the Britney." Even creating a list with check-marks instead of having a steady flow of sentences makes a page of print less intimidating to some. A person could read a section about a specific topic if they don't have the time to read the book cover to cover.

I do not want to give the impression that this book is all froth and no content. That is not the case at all. While the look is more user friendly than page after page of print, there is still a great deal of text. The content is organized into an introduction, four chapters on different age groups ("What's That Thing?--Talking to Your Toddler," "Did You Eat That Baby?--Talking to Your Preschooler," "Eww, That's So Gross!--Talking to Your 6-9-Year Old," "I Don't Want to Talk About It--Talking to Your Preteen") followed by a chapter with questions and answers.

The authors set out their assumptions in the first few pages. They include:

* No two children are alike and no two parents will have identical comfort levels or ideas about how to talk about sex, or about child rearing in general.