Afraid parents are being too naive.

Question

My fiance has an 11 year old son with his ex-wife. They baby him and treat him like he is still a very naive child. Neither one of them has broached any "adult" topic with him (i.e. s*x, drugs, and so forth). My fiance doesn't even think his son knows anything about s*x, menstruation, or other adult topics. Also, in general there is very little detailed conversation about life. Usually he gives one word answers to questions like "how was your day". My fiance handles my concern by just telling his son, "you know if you ever have questions about anything you can ask me right?". To which his son always replies "okay". So the conversation doesn't go anywhere. Am I being overly concerned. Shouldn't you start talking to your kids about stuff by this age? He's not my son so I can't push anything. Any advise?

Answer 1

I would think you wouldn't bring up those sorts of topics till the kid is at least 13. Just let your fiance deal with it, unfortunately, you don't really have much control over it at the moment.

Answer 2

Where I'm from kids have basic s*x ed in 5th grade and then s*x ed is included in health class 6th, 7th, 8th & 9th grade. He's probably at least heard the basics in school but since his parents have never brought it up he probably doesn't feel comfortable talking to them about it.

There really isn't much you can do since he's not your kid other than being receptive if he ever has questions and feels comfortable enough with you to talk about them.