Masturbation for parents

Jump to. Sections of this page. Accessibility Help. Email or Phone Password Forgot account? Sign Up. We asked parents to explain masturbation to their kids.

We may be hesitant to acknowledge that our children are sexual beings , sometimes in defiance of our own childhood experiences. And nowhere is the clash between parents, kids, and pleasure more real than when a child discovers masturbation. The shock of realizing that a child is touching himself or herself can cause parents to feel shocked, panicked and worried. Masturbation is a form of self-soothing, Garrison explains, particularly for young children who lack any sexual context for the activity. Children may consider putting their hands in their diapers as comforting as sucking their thumbs and, until they are told otherwise, they see no difference between the two. Ultrasounds have even revealed unborn babies touching their own genitals in utero.

I asked my mother, what is masturbation? Parents and children sometimes bring their questions and concerns to the pediatrician, but there is surprisingly little guidance or information available in the pediatric literature. And in an informal survey of pediatric colleagues, there seems to be a lot of variation in whether doctors bring up the subject. I will tell you that I took a certain amount of ribbing from my colleagues for even asking the question, which is not necessarily a bad thing; humor can help defuse a potentially embarrassing subject. Debby Herbenick, a professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health, who has conducted research studies related to child and adolescent sexual expression , said that as an icebreaker for talking with undergraduates, she shows them comments about the now-discontinued Harry Potter Nimbus battery-operated vibrating broomstick.

For the most part young people are left to work this out for themselves. However I get many young people accessing BISH for information about how to do it safely, sometimes young people have hurt themselves or are worried about doing it too much. So some parents may feel that they do need to talk about this — but how? Think about what you were first taught about masturbation; from parents, teachers, friends, religious teaching, cultural values, TV and media.