For a long time I was one of those people who watched, read, and stayed quiet.
But recently, while scrolling through yet another discussion about the so-called dangers of naming children's genitals, something in me snapped. For the first time in my life I joined a public exchange on Facebook and showed my position instead of hiding it.
I realized this: our silence is not neutral. Our silence is fertile ground for shame.
As someone who lives and works in a Catholic environment, I know how hard it can be to bring faith, tradition, and children's sexuality into the same space. The taboo around the body and pleasure is rooted so deeply that we often do not even notice it. But as a therapist I know the other side too, the side that slowly opens over years in the quiet of the therapy room.
1. Work with your own fidgeting
Test yourself: can you say words like penis, vagina, vulva, anus in any setting, without tightening up or feeling awkward? Or those "heavier" words that clients in my room often cannot bring themselves to say, so they call it "down there" instead?
If you feel uncomfortable, believe me, your children feel it too. They do not only listen to your words. They read your field. If you squirm while talking about the body, the child will "protect" you with silence.
If we want to build relationship in the field of sexuality, we first have to move through our own shame and guilt.
A lesson from my practice
When my own sexuality was still wrapped in shame and fear, clients did not come to me with those themes. I worked with them on anxiety, panic attacks, distress... they sensed that the sexuality part was not welcome with me.
My moment of awakening came when I realized that those same clients, in front of my husband, who at that time was more open in the field of sexuality, immediately began talking about sexual problems during workshops we were leading together.
As I slowly started melting my own ice and allowed myself to live with freer Eros, the dynamic started to change. Today, by the second therapy session, people often begin slowly approaching questions connected to sexuality, and my Eros is glad for it.
An invitation for you: If you feel a knot every time the body is mentioned, that is a sign your own Eros is asking for attention. I am here to help you melt that ice through individual therapy.
2. Naming the organs as a real shield
I often hear this fear: "How exactly would it help a child if they use the word vulva instead of pee-pee and know the anatomy of a vulva and penis? That is too early for my preschooler. Why would my child learn that in kindergarten?"
Dear parents, we have to stop looking at children's exploration of penis and vagina as a sexual act in the adult sense.
For a child it is play and curiosity. Just as they explore an ear or a hand, at one moment penis and vagina become interesting too.
Children do not sexualize that action. Adults do.
What matters is that the sexual organ exists in the field like any other body part, and as something natural. Honestly, it does not matter much whether you call it pee-pee, vagina, penis, or cock. That detail is secondary. What matters is that it exists and has the right to exist.
If a child can use those words freely with parents and teachers in kindergarten, that child gets permission to exist and to report it when someone crosses their boundaries.
If at home it is only "down there," a thing wrapped in silence, it will never occur to the child to tell you if, for example, a neighbor or another child approaches them inappropriately.
The child will stay alone inside a shame they do not understand. A clear word gives a child a voice. Code words and silence take that voice away.
3. What happens when theory becomes practice?
Situation: "The couch"
You walk into the room and catch your child rubbing against the edge of the couch or a pillow. Your inner alarm is screaming, and images of shame from your own childhood start firing up.
- Take a breath.
- Normalize pleasure: say, "I see you are exploring your body and that it feels good. That is completely natural." In that moment you are confirming that the child is not "bad" or "broken."
- Set a privacy boundary: explain that this is something private, something done in their room.
- Without shame and without punishment, you have taught the child about boundaries while protecting their vitality.
4. Eros as life energy, is pleasure a sin?
Eros is not only sex. It is the life force that moves us. Not only human beings, but all of nature and the world around us.
A flower blooms to attract the insect that will pollinate it. Birds preen and display themselves to one another. Eros is what moves the world, whether we like it or not. It is simply here around us. We can ignore it, or finally admit that this is true.
If you ignore someone, what do you think is born in that person?
If you want powerless, lifeless adults with extinguished Eros, frighten them, shame them, and burden them with guilt while they are still children.
The result? They will still search for pleasure, because pleasure is a basic human need, but they will search for it in the dark, through fetishes, addictions, and everything hidden.
When we lose contact with Eros, we become bitter and depressed, because we begin making decisions only from the head and not from the joy of the body.
That is why it is better to meet Eros openly and get to know it than to push it into the shadow. Because if it is pushed away, rejected, and denied, it turns cruel.
5. Take off the armor, you do not have to be perfect parents
It is completely fine to tell your child, "This is a little uncomfortable for me because my parents were not like this with me, but I am learning because I want you to know you can lean on me." Your authenticity is your child's greatest safety.
Conclusion, it is better if they lean on you
We live in a world where pornography offers distorted answers one click away. Our children must not become victims of our shame.
I choose to be the voice that says: your body is good, your feelings are natural, and you are safe here to talk about everything.
Because in the end, it is much better if they lean on us when they feel uncertain than if they go looking for truth in the dark glow of a screen.