These situations can pop up all the time where curious kids are chatting together, and, like adults, they head straight to google to get a quick answer. What they may not realise is that the results to questions like this might not be suitable for them. And once you’ve seen something, you can’t un-see it!
We had to have this conversation with our Year 6s recently (10 yo). We talked about e-safety and also acknowledged that they may be getting more curious about bodies and sex.
We reminded them of the following:
💻 hopefully your school and home devices have school/parental controls on them
🖥 use a search engine designed for children
-kiddle
-wackysafe
-KidRex
-Safe Search Kids
-Factmonster
❓think carefully about your question. If it is about something like puberty or sex, it would be better to go to a trusted adult like a parent or teacher
👯♀️why might it not be a good idea to ask a friend? (They might not know the answer or give you an incorrect one)
✅it’s perfectly normal to be curious and have questions and I am here to answer any you may have
❌it is not your job to ‘educate’ your friends on these topics, it is their parents’ jobs to do that, so please respect other people’s learning journey
👏 When I told them that we would be starting our Relationships and Sex Education unit next term and they could ask me anything then, they seemed pretty happy! The beauty of being a parent is that you can have these conversations little and often so they are constantly having these message reinforced and know that they can come to you for a factual, shame free answer.
👨👩👧👦There are lots of resources online to help you set up the right parental controls for your family.