Sex education of the young child

My comments refer to the 3-5 year age group, and I use the term "sexual" in its broadest meaning, as defined by Freud. In the young child's life there are few areas which are not linked to sexual interests. Sex information is but one part of the child's sexual education. Regarding sex information for the school child, a lively debate started a long time ago and continues to this day as to whether the home, the school, or some other agency should provide sexual information for him. But there is no such controversy with regard to the young child and thus no need to discuss it here. But there is another aspect of the problem which remains as unsolved today as it was 10 or 20, or even 50 years ago; and that is the parents' anxiety about the sexual behavior of their children. While this anxiety may not be more intense today than in the past, it has extended into wider circles. One of the reasons for this is that standards of sexual behavior have changed so radically in the last few decades that very little of traditional attitudes remains applicable. Today we are not afraid to destroy a child's "innocence" by what we tell him. But while we stress honesty in sexual matters some of us, including myself, are aware that we can err in more than one way: a child can be exposed to more than he can take, he can be sexually overstimulated. I want to discuss very briefly a few general facts of the child's development before making inferences about his sexual education. For a young child many things are "normal," or to use the experts' term, "phase specific," which in an adult would constitute pathology. This is the principal insight that we derive from a study of child development. A child goes through phases and in each phase some of his needs and certain aspects of his behavior are radically different. At one time a specific interest may be all important to him; this however does not imply that unless we do something tO change it, it will remain his main interest for the rest of his life. The reverse is often true: he can more easily outgrow a need, if he is permitted to become satiated. For instance, all very young children are highly interesl-ed in their excretory functions. Provided that the conditions for the child's ,en-