When should I teach my children about sexual matters?

Q. How do we teach our children about sexual ethics and knowledge? And at what age?

Building Trust

The late Damascene scholar Shaykh Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti (d. 2013), may Allah Most High have mercy on him, used to relate that when he had his first nocturnal emission, he ran to his father in tears to tell him what had happened. His father was the late Mulla Ramadan al-Bouti (d. 1990), may Allah Most High have mercy on him, widely considered by the scholars of Damascus as someone of exemplary piety. He was a religious man who succeeded in transferring his religious values to his son and this vignette tells us why.

He succeeded because his son trusted him so much that he ran to him in tears to tell him what had happened when he had his first nocturnal emission. We all need to ask ourselves—If our son had his first nocturnal emission, would he trust us enough to talk to us about it? If our daughter fell in love with a boy in her class, would she trust us enough to talk to us about it? If either of them was having trouble lowering their gaze or controlling their desires, would they trust us enough to talk about it? If our honest answers to these questions is, “probably not”, then we haven’t built enough trust with our children to be able to transfer our religious values to them.

Talking to Your Children

Building trust requires creating a family culture in which you openly and empathetically talk to your children about the religious challenges that they will face. A disproportionately large number of these religious challenges are related to sexual matters—romance, falling in love, sexual attraction, masturbation, dating, homosexuality, pornography, child abuse, marriage, family planning, human reproduction, menstruation, sexual impurity, purificatory baths, concealing one’s nakedness, and so on.

That means that you need to proactively talk to your children about these challenges before they encounter them. Before they fall in love or want to go out with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, you should have talked to them about falling in love and going out with boyfriends or girlfriends. Before they are sexually attracted to someone else, you should have talked to them about sexual attraction. Before they reach puberty, you should have talked to them about menstruation, nocturnal emissions, and masturbation.

The best way to have these conversations is around a class in sacred law (fiqh) in which your children learn how to fulfill their moral responsibility to God. They should talk about these challenges as they learn the laws of purification, worship, financial transactions, inheritance, marriage, divorce, and government. Their study of sacred law should be a point of departure for the discussion of real-life challenges. We can help you do this at Basira Education through our courses in Sacred Law for young adults.

The way to have these conversations is not just to tell your children what they aren’t allowed to do; the way to have these conversations is to tell them about what is happening around them, describe how they will feel when they see or hear about such things, explain that sexual attraction is normal and healthy, teach them the guidance that Allah Most High has given us regarding these matters, illustrate the harms of not following that guidance, give them a plan for how to react when they are faced with challenges, and encourage them to ask questions.

Two Common Pitfalls

The sign that they trust you is that they come to you with their questions. They may not ask right away. They may ask the next day, the next week, or even the next month. But if you know that they are facing challenges related to sexual matters (and, in our times, every child does) and you find that they are not asking you questions and seeking your guidance, then you are probably making a parenting mistake.

There are two common parenting mistakes that you might be making. The first is to completely avoid talking about such issues and pretend that they don’t exist. This is a mistake because these issues don’t merely exist; they are unavoidable. And if you don’t talk to your children about them, someone else will. If you want to transfer your religious values to your children, they should hear about these things from you before they hear about them from their friends or their schoolteachers.

The second mistake is to talk to your children in a way that makes them feel that they don’t deserve your love if they don’t live up to your expectations. Your message to your children shouldn’t be, “Don’t you ever do something so bad!” Rather, your message to them should be, “Here is something harmful, here is why it is harmful, I am always here to help you, I will love you no matter what you do, and I want the best for you.” Your children will fall. It is your job as a parent is to be there to help them back on their feet. If you just tell them that they should never fall, you aren’t doing your job.

The Example of Mulla Ramadan

Mulla Ramadan

Shaykh Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti, may Allah Most High have mercy on him, lived in a conservative religious culture where his father didn’t need to talk to him about all of these things. That is why he ran to his father to talk to him about a mere nocturnal emission. Time have changed, and most of us no longer live in conservative religious cultures. But the example of Mulla Ramadan al-Bouti, may Allah Most High have mercy on him, is even more relevant today than it was then. We need our children to run to talk us not just about nocturnal emissions, but a whole host of sexual matters. May Allah Most High give us tawfiq.

Every week, Hamza Karamali will select one of your questions to answer in this space. If you’ve any questions that you’d like to ask, please submit them here.