This Video Series May Just Teach You How To Answer Your Kid’s Awkward Qs!

This piece has been contributed by Candidly. Candidly is an organisation that aims to drive meaningful conversations around issues that will affect positive growth and influence attitudes among children and young adults. Their focus is on building an understanding of prevalent attitudes on gender and sexuality as they manifest in media and through culture. This post has been written by Amita Malhotra, a facilitator at Candidly. She works with Reema Ahmad to produce videos that tackle matters of gender and sexuality expertly using humour as a vehicle.  

One of the difficult parts of working alongside a friend is that ‘work’ conversations don’t strictly remain in those confines. The joyful part is that some very interesting ideas actually emerge from conversations about our own lives and personal experiences.

You may also like: Must See Viral Video On Insanely Awkward Questions Children Ask!

In one such phone conversation with Reema, broadly on the theme ‘wary parents, curious kids’, we spoke about how kids are capable of asking such wide variety of questions that leave us baffled as parents. Sample this –

• Why do women have squishy chests and men have flat chests?
• Why do you wear nappies mumma, you’re a grown up?
• Why do men hide stuff in their swimming trunks?
• What is sex? Should I whisper the word? Why does everyone whisper it? Is it against the law?

None of these is a figment of our imagination. These are all real questions that have been asked by kids from their unsuspecting parents.

You may also like: Dr.Vandita Dubey on Puberty, Gender Bias and Child Sexual Abuse

Part of the struggle is how to communicate an answer which is appropriate for the 4 years or 14 years old as the case maybe. But a more significant part is that most parents feel too embarrassed to talk about these things openly. Some don’t want to tell their kids “more than he/she should know at this ageâ€_x009d_. Some are embarrassed to talk because they always saw these matters hushed up by their parents and elders and pass the concept of shame (quite literally haw! shame!shame!) to our kids.

You may also like: The One Quality All Millennial Parents Need To Teach Their Children

Reema recently wrote a post about her own experience handling an awkward question from her son. It showed why ‘he is too young to know’ isn’t a choice for parents raising kids in a hypermedia environment. The only choice is to inspire a sense of trust from our kids, encourage them to share what they think, feel and experience openly with us, without fear of ridicule or rejection. They are much safer trying to find answers from us as parents than trying to find it from the internet. They are better off clarifying confusions from adults who understand these things than only depending on sometimes ridiculous and often dangerous versions shared by an equally misinformed peer group.

You may also like: Birds, Bees, Barbie, Ken? Here’s How To Have The Sex Talk With Your Child.

We thought we need to talk more about this with fellow parents, teachers, uncles and aunts. But not as dry and boring as perhaps the post above. Hence was born our first digital series – Awkward 101 – Things Kids Ask.

It’s a 3 part series with a light-hearted take on questions that our kids ask, questions of intimacy and identity, questions that they drop on us like #awkwardbomb. Here is Episode 2 of the series. You can watch episode 1 here.

If you enjoy watching this series, do share with your friends and family. Have your kids asked you a similar awkward question? Please do share. Let’s end the silence and bury the shame. Let’s defuse this #awkwardbomb!

You may also like: DadSpeak: The right name for wee-wees and hoo-haas

Image Source: http://todayslifestyle.com

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest or subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more information.