Masturbation doesn’t have to be a difficult topic to talk about with your kids. Small children, especially, may not even understand what masturbation means. They just know that touching themselves feels good. This is often the easiest time to broach the subject if you ask me. The video above provides scripting for this talk with your child. It is just one except from our Talking THE Talk Together e-course designed to guide parents and their 9-12 year old kid through the sex talk together. 

With younger children, parents can acknowledge that the touching is happening by saying something like, “I totally understand your body feels good.”  Then parents can suggest that kind of touching be done in private and, if kids want to do it, they should go to their rooms to be alone.

For a child under age 8, the talk might revolve around self-touching. This is vastly different than masturbating for sexual pleasure (which involves hormones, fantasy, and...