Parental interpretations of “childhood innocence”: implications for early sexuality education

Abstract

Despite general recognition of the benefits of talking openly about sexuality with children, parents encounter and/or create barriers to such communication. One of the key barriers is a desire to protect childhood innocence. Using data collected during focus group discussions with parents and carers of young children, the current study explores parental interpretations of childhood innocence and the influence this has on their reported practices relating to sexuality-relevant communication with young children aged between 4 and 7 years old. Childhood innocence was commonly equated with non-sexuality in children and sexual ignorance. Parents displayed ambiguity around the conceptualisation of non-innocence in children. Parents desire to prolong the state of childhood innocence led them to withhold certain sexual knowledge from their children; however, the majority also desired an open relationship whereby their child could approach them for information.

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ORCID for Nicole Stone: orcid.org/0000-0003-0995-8699

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