How/when to Bring up "Tough" Subjects

The world is a scary place. I worry about the same stuff with my 3 year old. But to tell you the truth she gets it. the more blunt that I am about the subject the easier it is for her to understand. It is hard to digest now a days, cause it was not like this when we were growing up. Just tell him that the only people that he is to take ANY pills/candy what have you comes from YOU and the schoole NURSE no exceptions! That if he is to take something from someone else it could make him very very very sick. I would tell him that there are bad people out there and some of these people like to hurt little kids so he needs to make sure that he listens to you when you say that he can only take pills from you and the school nurse. It is a lot different in today's world when it comes to sex cause there is so much of it on t.v that you almost have to ex[plain to them what sex is and there bodies part are for them not any one else at a very young age. My 3 year old and I are going over that right now. Explaining that her boobies need to be covered because they are hers not any one else's and not everyone should see them. Obvousily you do not need to get into to much detail cause it will all get lost in the translation but it is good to be honest about there bodies and the bad people that are out there. Please do not shelter you child cause he will end up getting hurt. Good luck.

simple answers when there younger.. my 9 year old knows most things... when she gets older i add more to my answers.. mostly so she learns that her body is hers!!! you could ask your childs doc how you should explain these things so they understand... my doc for my children is very good on giving advise... and which age to do this or talk bout that.... good luck

J., looks like there haven't been any other responses here yet, maybe because a similar question came up on yesterday's mamasource. If you still have it, check it out, there were lots of good suggestions. Otherwise, here's my advice. Be really honest with your son. The world IS a scary place and he needs to know that there are dangers, just don't make him too scared to leave the house. Something like "there are medicines out there that can make you sick instead of better and it's important to remember that. Never take any pills(drugs/medicine's whatever) that anyone but mommy/daddy/grandma, etc give you. Simple, honest and complete. Let him know that he can tell you if anything like this ever happens so he knows HES not bad or in trouble, even if he does try something or is just curious. And don't forget to include alcohol in the conversaion when you feel like it is appropriate. Binge drinking is at an all time high amoung kids. ALso, part of my job is to go into school and talkabout sexual safety with kids as young as elementary, so if you have questions, let me know! Good luck!
S.

you need to start right from birth I know that sounds weird but i have taken lots of classes (I run an in home daycare) they need to feel comfortable with you and every topic NO yelling or pushing them to listen just a little when every a topic comes up works best we also do lots of role playing as what to do when something happens if he understand pretend then you can do role playing if not just keep reminding him like when you are at the park or grocery store etc. My 4 year old loves to play the stranger game because we have a contest to see how loud he can yell and how fast he can run in the opposite direction. with my 8 year old (she is very friendly) when we go for walks around the neighbor hood (Because she walks to and from the bus around the corner) we play games like who's house would you run to if something happend (our safe houses) and make sure they know their phone number, their name, and parents name's. That is another game we play we ask them questions about important info. You can go to the dare website and they give you lots of info or you local police station the have coloring books reading books and parent info for every question imaginable we have taken family field trips ther so they are comfortable talking to police men and fire men. I hope this helps.

We talk about the hard stuff on a fairly regular basis. If I see an opportunity, I take it. We just bought a can of compressed air for the computer, and the boys were just fascinated by it ... so we talked about huffing. Their biomom is trying to quit smoking, so we talked about why not to start. They have a half-sister by their mom, and they were 5 and 8 when she was pregnant. They didn't ask my husband and I a lot of questions, but I was the one to explain to Connor (10, now) how the baby eats. They know it takes a mom and a dad, but I don't think they know a whole lot more than that. I know that it will be like smoking and drugs and been, though - when an opportunity comes up, we'll take it.