"we teach kids about sex at 13-16, any earlier and it can actually scare them" protestant american spotted!! We learned in grade 5 (age 10) and I knew what it was for years prior uwu
When I was 8 I fully knew what sex was and the sum total of my thoughts was "that sounds gross. Hey can I play Pokemon now"
Any kid who has unfixed pets or lives in the general vicinity of a farm knows what sex is by the time they're five or six. I knew about it at four because I have a little sister and my parents were normal about explaining what the hell was going on with my mom's abdomen, why we were prepping the house for a baby and when she'd be arriving.
My thoughts on the matter were mostly "Oh yeah, like on PBS Nature. Cool. I'm gonna go dig a hole for fun now."
To add to this, when I was being taught in 4th grade, up until that point anything relating to the subject of sex ed was heavily censored; so for our very first day of sex ed, we were going in blind.
My classmates and I had such a terrible reaction to the information because you could tell that,
a.) the teachers were uncomfortable and b.) it was explained to us in a very dramatic and grotesque way.
This is a perfect example of how censorship and mishandling information can cause reactions that specific groups of people claim are accurate for all children. It was almost comical how when we reached middle school sex ed, you could tell which of us had that experience and who didn't.
Fast forward to when I worked as a babysitter, the 6 and 3 year olds I was caring for asked me to read them a book on where babies come from.
Children value transparency and recognize when something is stigmatized.
