How To Talk About Periods
I am not an expert by any stretch, but this is how I talked to my boys about periods.
“Mom! Do you have blood coming out of your BUTT”?!
My kids barge in on me when I’m going to the bathroom. It just happens, even when I have my period they come in. And ever since I found out that my second child was a boy I was thankful I wouldn’t have to deal with periods.
I just didn’t think about how I would talk to them about periods. Because even though they don’t actually have a menstrual cycle, they need to know about it.
So, when my five-year-old screamed from the top of his lungs concerned that I had blood streaming out of my butt, I figured now is as good a time as any to explain periods.
First, I told him that mommy was in fact not bleeding out of her butt, but that I was bleeding out of my vagina. After that, I explained in the most simple terms that when mommy doesn’t have a baby in her tummy she bleeds or has her period every single month. But when she does have a baby in her tummy she won’t bleed or have her period. (I know that both of these things can be true or untrue with each person’s differing body, but I was trying to make things very simple)
I then told them that it was part of being a girl. That all girls will get periods and bleed. That it is totally normal and there is literally nothing girls can do to stop it. (Again, I know there is, but remember just keeping things simple)
I told them my body decides when my period (or the blood) comes out and mommy can’t control it.
For the most part, they seemed to understand.
Periods are normal
I also made it VERY clear that they should NEVER make fun of a girl who has blood on her butt – that if they see a girl with blood on her butt they should offer her their sweatshirt, jacket, shirt, or whatever they have to cover it until she can get a change of clothes.
I explained that sometimes mommy’s body hurts when she has her period and that again was totally normal.
My “parenting style” if you want to call it that is to just be honest about as much as I can. Our bodies aren’t off-limits to talk about. What our bodies do is totally natural and sometimes like in the case of a period, something we have zero control over.
So while this isn’t an expert how to talk about periods it is how I have chosen to talk about periods with my boys.
