There is hardly a parent who is not disturbed at one time or another by the extraordinary questions of children. Even the smallest of children will ask about some of the specific processes associated with the changes of the body, and particularly with birth. The physicians who have been making a study of this question, aided by grants from several foundations concerned with child psychology, point out that these questions do not mean that the child is especially interested in sex, or in its excretions, but really represent experiments in the art of conversation. The parent who has helped the child to express himself on many other matters becomes embarrassed, apprehensive, or even shocked. The child has asked all sorts of questions on other occasions simply because the occasion focused his attention on the subject.
The child who sees a litter of kittens for the first time, or who hears about a new baby in the neighborhood, or who happens to overhear discussions in the home, is really being normal when he asks questions. For example, a little girl is taken to a pet store, where her mother purchases a kitten. The little girl wants to know where they will get another kitten if she buys fl-is one. Where do the kittens come from? The mother becomes embarrassed and replies, "I will tell you later." Certainly this is the wrong attitude. The same little girl learned later that the cat ate birds, and asked, "Where do the birds come from?" Her mother told her that birds lay eggs, which the mother bird hatches. The little girl was extremely bored and said she knew all about that.
The difficulty is, of course, that the apprehensive parent is thinking far beyond the scope of the knowledge of the child, and is trying to discourage natural curiosity instead of taking advantage of such curiosity for reasonable enlightenment. The average child soon learns to accept the fact that grown-up people have their own rules, and that one of the rules in some homes is that all talk of sex is forbidden. Dr. Jacob H. Conn, of Baltimore, points out that such parental attitudes help to sensitize the child so as to make many things appear indecent which are actually normal. The attempt to explain development by analogies with seeds and flowers is not always successful, and frequently creates misapprehensions about eating which persist in afterlife.
Healthy children are not as easily upset as many people believe. The child who is not too much disturbed is likely to ask few questions concerned with sex. This fact is in contrast to the opinions of many parents who have been led to believe that unless special precautions are taken to check the curiosity of children, parents will be deluged with embarrassing questions. The average child is not interested in a complete examination of the body. The scope of his interest in matters of sex, like the growth of his appetite and height, increases as the child grows older. The information that the child requires cannot be given in one discussion, according to modern investigators, any more than can all the vitamins required throughout life be obtained in one meal. Indeed, Doctor Conn gives some exceedingly good advice when he says :
"All parents might profit if they could stop being fortunetellers and cease peering into the future for the purpose of preventing calamities which probably never will happen. In any case, the most apprehensive parent can learn to appreciate the fact that the child is not as fragile a creature as some persons make him out to be. He should remember that in the serious business of life, collections of words count for much less than training for effective living."
Incidentally, a series of scientific names given to the child will not immunize the child against the language of the street. The child may need both sets of terms to have an effective understanding of his development. Thus, Doctor Conn states:
"The parent in the average home, who is doing his best to give the child an opportunity to express himself and to share in the common experiences of everyday life, may justifiably feel that he has made a most significant contribution to the health and happiness of his children."---Editorial, Hygeia, January, 1941, reprinted by permission.