By Kate Stewart

When our children learned to walk they started by crawling then pulling themselves up and finally taking those first wobbly steps. When they learned to talk they started with simple sounds that eventually formed into words. Reading was the same – recognizing letters and sounds and moving up to simple books.

Our babies did not go to sleep one night and the next day wake up able to run down the street or recite the Gettysburg Address – even though sometimes it feels like these things happen in a blink of an eye.

It is a process -- learning to walk, talk, read, ride a bike – learning how to do just about anything is a process. So it dawned on me that for us to think about one day sitting down and having “the talk” with our kids misses this point completely and also has us missing many opportunities.

It takes baby steps and laying the foundation for a child’s healthy sexual growth begins on day one. I know it sounds strange to think about your tiny baby and how she is already beginning the process of developing sexually. When I first heard someone say that infants, children, teens are all sexual beings, it made me uncomfortable. My first reaction was a mixture of fear and apprehension. But the problem was I was jumping in the deep end without first learning how to do the doggy paddle. Think about it, when you hear the phrase “sexual development” what do you think of? Sex, intercourse, all the things you don’t want your kids doing until they’re 30 and out of the house. But as I said that is jumping in at the deep end.