Part of The Amazing Me Top Tips Series
Top Tip #31: Be Honest, Get Curious and Stay Connected
A mum once told me her son casually asked her, “What’s tea-bagging?”
She had absolutely no idea.
So, she did what most of us would probably do.
She looked it up.
And then got the shock of her life.
Suddenly, not knowing wasn’t her problem anymore. She knew exactly what it meant.
Her new problem was working out how on earth she was going to explain it to her son.
In fact, she told me she spent far more mental energy trying to come up with a clever way to conveniently avoid answering the question altogether.
I had to laugh when she told me.
Because this is parenting.
Sometimes our children ask us something and our first thought isn’t, How do I answer this?
It’s, How do I get out of answering this?
Our children are going to ask us things we don’t know.
“What’s OnlyFans?”
“What’s tea-bagging?”
Sometimes it will be a word they’ve heard at school. Sometimes it will be an app, platform, meme or piece of slang that didn’t even exist when we were their age. And whatever we manage to learn today, I can guarantee there will be something new tomorrow.
Even after more than 35 years of teaching sexual health, children still manage to ask me questions I don’t know the answer to.
And I’m quite happy to tell them: “I don’t know.”
Because not knowing isn’t the problem.
What matters is what we do next.
When “Questions Are Welcome” Gets Tested
It’s easy to tell our children they can ask us anything.
It gets a little harder when they actually do.
Especially when the question is something we’ve never heard of, weren’t expecting, or secretly wish they’d asked someone else.
Our first thought might be:
Oh no. I don’t know the answer. How am I going to get out of this one?
But remember what we’ve talked about before: Questions are Welcome.
Instead of looking for a way out of the conversation, recognise that your child has just given you a way into one.
They asked you.
That matters.
You don’t need to bluff. You don’t need to pretend you know. And you certainly don’t need to panic because your 10-year-old apparently knows a word you don’t.
“I have absolutely no idea what that means.”
is a perfectly good answer.
Then you can work out what comes next.
3 Things to Do When You Don’t Know
🪞 1. Admit You Don’t Know
Sometimes being the parent makes us feel as though we should have an answer.
We don’t.
“I don’t know.”
“I haven’t heard that one before.”
“I’m not sure.”
These are honest answers, and honesty builds trust.
Your child also gets to see something important: adults don’t have to pretend to know things they don’t. We can be curious. We can learn. We can even discover that something we thought was true isn’t.
That’s not losing credibility.
That’s modelling it.
👀 2. Get Curious Before You Go Looking
Before you reach for your phone, find out what your child already knows.
“Where did you hear that?”
“What do you think it means?”
“What were you talking about when it came up?”
You may discover that your child has misunderstood the word completely, heard half a playground conversation, or already knows far more than you expected.
Then decide what you need to find out.
Sometimes you can look something up together. Sometimes, as our tea-bagging mum discovered, you may be very glad you said:
“I don’t know that one. Let me check it out and I’ll come back to you.”
You might learn something. You might get the shock of your life. You might even have a good laugh together.
The important thing is that you didn’t run away from the question.
🔁 3. Come Back
If you tell your child you’re going to find out, come back.
“Remember that thing you asked me yesterday? I checked.”
It sounds like such a small thing, but it tells your child:
Your question mattered enough for me to remember.
And sometimes you may still not have a neat answer.
“I found out what it means, but I want to think a bit more about how to explain it.”
That’s okay too.
You Already Know How to Do This
If you’ve been following along with me, you may have noticed that none of this is really new.
We’re simply applying our ‘5-Step Method’ which gives us a simple way to respond when our children ask us something unexpected, especially as they become more curious about sex, how babies are made and other tricky subjects.
We pause instead of panicking. We get curious about what our child is asking. We answer what we can, in a way that makes sense for them. And if we don’t know enough yet, we come back.
You already have the tools.
Sometimes you just need to trust yourself enough to use them.
Your Values Still Work When the Question Is New
Not knowing what something means doesn’t mean you don’t know how to guide your child through it.
The words, platforms and technology will keep changing. But the values that help us navigate them can remain remarkably steady.
Once we understand what our child is asking about, we can help them think:
Is it safe?
Is it kind?
Is it respectful?
Does it respect my body and somebody else’s?
How might this affect another person?
Does it fit with what matters in our family?
We don’t need to tell our children what to think about every new thing that comes their way. We can teach them how to think when they meet something new.
And I actually think these unexpected questions are a bit of a gift.
Every time your child brings you something you don’t know, you have an opportunity to work it out together. They watch how you ask questions, how you find information, how you think about what you discover, and how you bring your values into it.
And this extends well beyond conversations about bodies, sex or growing up. You’re helping them build a way of approaching problems: What do I know? What don’t I know? Where can I get help? Is it safe? Is it kind? Is it respectful? Does it fit with what matters to me and my family?
One day, they’ll face complicated situations when you aren’t standing beside them and can’t jump in to fix things. Little by little, you’re giving them a framework for working out what to do next.
And that’s exactly what we want.
What Matters Most
Our children don’t need us to know everything.
They need to know they can trust what we tell them.
So, the next time your child asks something that leaves you completely stumped, don’t look for a way out.
Remember, they’ve just given you a way in.
Say, “I don’t know.”
Get curious.
Find out together, or tell them you’ll come back.
Because every question is another opportunity to learn together, practise the values that matter to your family and strengthen the connection between you.
We won’t always know. We won’t always get it right. What matters is that our children see us stay curious, keep learning and keep coming back.
And sometimes the most honest, trustworthy and powerful answer we can give our child really is:
“I don’t know.”
Talking Sex -A Conversation Guide for Parents
Drawing from extensive experience and contemporary research, this ground-breaking book challenges readers to reconsider outdated beliefs about sex and sexuality education. It’s packed with conversation starters, tips and strategies to empower adults to provide the accurate, comprehensive, age-appropriate information children need for a fulfilling and safe journey through life. Talking Sex covers a variety of topics including sexual safety, diversity, reproduction, pleasure, consent and sexual health.
‘How To Talk with Your Kids About Porn’
Drawing from extensive experience and contemporary research, this book challenges readers to consider the impact of pornography on children. It addresses why, when, and how children access pornography and offers practical strategies for discussing it within diverse family values and belief systems.
"The Parents' Guide to EXPLAINING SEX".
This book will explain to you what information is crucial to share with your child regarding sex and how to do so. Regardless of whether your child is a willing listener, this book facilitates difficult conversations by breaking sexual intercourse down into 5 smaller, separate chunks.
My Body Belongs to Me
This book is for adults and parents about how to teach the whole family practically about consent and boundaries.
