Part of The Amazing Me Top Tips Series
Make It Less Awkward
It is okay to laugh.
A dad once told me about a conversation that had his whole family laughing.
His young son announced, quite proudly and in front of his older siblings, that when he grew up, he wanted a big penis just like his dad.
As you can imagine, that got everyone’s attention.
Dad asked the obvious question.
“Why do you want a big penis?”
His son’s answer was beautifully logical.
Because he was tired of going to the toilet all the time. If he had a bigger penis, he explained, it would “hold more wee”.
The family burst out laughing.
And so did he.
Nobody made him feel embarrassed or told him it was inappropriate. Dad didn’t launch into an anatomy lesson or turn a funny family moment into a very serious conversation about bodies. They laughed together, enjoyed the wonderful logic of a young child, and moved on.
I love that story. Because sometimes, as adults, we make conversations about bodies, puberty and sexuality much more awkward than our children do.
We lower our voices. We search for the perfect words. We put on our serious parenting face. One simple question can suddenly become a 20-minute educational seminar our child never actually asked for.
After more than 35 years of teaching children about this stuff, I can tell you something.
I laugh a lot.
So do the kids.
I even know which slides are going to get them before I put them on the screen. Naked bodies (cartoons) nearly always get a reaction. And with the boys, my slides about ‘wet dreams’ and ‘more frequent erections can bring the house down.
Let’s face it, much of the content is really funny.
That doesn’t mean we don’t respect it. It doesn’t mean the children aren’t learning. And it certainly doesn’t mean we’re laughing at anybody.
At the beginning of my lessons, I usually ask the children, “How are you feeling today?”
They might be excited, curious, nervous, embarrassed or uncomfortable. They might think the whole subject is gross. They might feel completely neutral about it. They might not want to be there at all.
“That’s okay,” I tell them. “All of those feelings are perfectly normal.”
We all come from different families. We have different values, different experiences and different ways of talking about these things.
And yes, sometimes we’re going to laugh.
My Question Box has certainly given me plenty of opportunities over the years:
– Who invented sex?
– Why on earth would people have sex?
– Why doesn’t the baby drown when it’s in the tummy?
– How do people know how to have sex?
– How long do you have to have sex for to make a baby?
– Can the penis break inside the vagina?
– How can people feel nice feelings when they have sex?
– How many times a week do you have to have sex?
Sometimes one question sets the whole room off.
I don’t rush to shut the laughter down. I let them laugh. Quite often, I’m laughing with them. And then we talk.
Because laughter doesn’t make the conversation less important. Sometimes it makes the conversation possible.
It can take away some of the embarrassment. It can make not knowing something feel okay. And it can tell a child something very important:
You haven’t shocked me. We can talk about this.
We can take the topic seriously without making every conversation serious
4 Ways to Embrace the Laughter
🪞 1. Loosen Up a Little
Sometimes it isn’t our child who is feeling awkward. It’s us.
Notice what happens when an unexpected question arrives. Do you lower your voice? Look around to see who might be listening? Suddenly become very serious?
You don’t need the perfect words or a special “sex education voice”. Take a breath, smile and answer as yourself.
And if the words come out all wrong, say so.
“That sounded much better in my head. Let me try again.”
You might even have a laugh about it together.
❤️ 2. Laugh With Them, Never at Them
If something is funny, allow yourself to laugh.
Laugh with your kids.
Shared laughter can take the tension out of a conversation and strengthen connection. But there is an important difference between laughing with a child and laughing at them.
Their body, their question or something they didn’t know should never make them ‘the’ joke or feel embarrassed or humiliated. Enjoy the funny moment. Then give their question the same respect you would give anything else they brought you.
🧭 3. Teach & Guide: Use Humour as an Avenue for Teaching the Facts
Humour can open the door to learning. When your child laughs at an awkward puberty moment or shares some wildly inaccurate playground “information”, enjoy the laugh, then gently add the facts.
You might say:
“That is pretty funny. Do you know what actually happens?”
There’s no need to turn it into a biology lesson. Keep it simple, accurate and follow their curiosity.
The laughter creates the opening. Use it to include something they can trust: the facts.
🔁 4. You Can Always Come Back
A funny question doesn’t need to become a lesson simply because an opportunity has appeared.
Answer what your child is asking. Have a laugh. Let the conversation move on.
You can always come back.
That’s exactly what the father in our opening story did.
A few days later, Dad asked his son about it again. This time, his son became emotional.
There was a substitute teacher at school who wouldn’t let him use the toilet during lesson time. He was terrified he might wet his pants.
Suddenly, his logic made complete sense. A bigger penis would “hold more wee”. He wouldn’t need to ask to go to the toilet, and his problem would disappear.
If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ll recognise this recurring theme. You might like to explore this further, if you haven’t yet read some of my previous blogs; Listen More Than You Speak. Sometimes a simple question can carry much bigger feelings – The Question Beneath the Question.
We don’t need to analyse every funny thing our children say looking for a hidden problem. Dad hadn’t done anything wrong by laughing with his son the first time.
He simply came back.
His son told him something harder. Dad listened, understood what was worrying him and was able to speak with the school and help.
The laughter hadn’t stopped him taking his son seriously. And taking his son seriously didn’t make that first moment any less funny.
Both things could be true.
Humour and Your Family Values
Humour can also be one of the ways children explore values.
There’s a reason jokes about bodies, sex and growing up can be a little crude or rude. Sometimes children are simply being funny or repeating something they’ve heard. But sometimes humour gives them a safe way to put an idea out there and see how we respond.
Is Mum shocked? What does Dad think? Is this something we can talk about? Have I crossed a boundary?
We don’t need to analyse every joke. But humour can sometimes give us a little window into the world our children are exploring.
We can laugh and still guide.
“That was funny, but here’s what we believe about that in our family.”
Or, “I can see why you laughed, but how might that joke feel if it was about someone here?”
Humour doesn’t have to compete with our values. Sometimes it gives us a wonderfully natural way to talk about them. But as our children get older, there’s another important lesson to add – being funny doesn’t give us permission to cross someone else’s boundaries. A joke can still be inappropriate, hurtful or offensive, and learning to recognise when humour has crossed that line is part of learning to treat others with kindness and respect.
What Matters Most
We can respect the child. Respect the subject. Take their questions and feelings seriously.
But it’s also important to loosen up a little.
Allow yourself to laugh. Laugh with your kids. Because let’s face it, so much of this stuff really is funny.
And when we laugh together, we strengthen connection. We remind our kids that these conversations don’t have to feel embarrassing or sit awkwardly apart from the rest of family life.
We’re simply allowing ourselves to be human while we talk about being human.
Hair In Funny Places
Hair and the fact that it starts growing in funny places is a picture book about puberty for young children. Leave it to Babette Cole’s usual wit to make this a fun read.
Everyone's Got A Bottom
This book is a storybook for young children and a great way to start having conversations about bodies, body safety, boundaries, and consent.
Where Willy Went
It is sometimes a difficult conversation for a parent to enter a discussion about sex and how babies are made especially with a small child. This book aims to help parents make that conversation fun.
The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made
‘The Amazing True Story of How Babies are Made’ was written by Fiona Katauskas for kids aged 5 to 10. The cartoon illustrations by are fun colourful and gorgeous.
