Should Mom Worry About Her Young Daughter's Sexual Behavior?

A commenter on a previous post asked this:

I have a question pertaining to the topic here. My child, a 5-year old girl, has been exhibiting a behavior sexual in nature since about 3. She will "hump" a stuffed toy or, as of late, a balled up blanket. At first I though she was just pretending to ride them but when she switched to a blanket recently I realized what she was doing.

I am alarmed because I have asked every mom I know with a 5-year-old daughter and I found only one other mom who will say, "Yes, my child does that also." Does this mean my child has a problem? I have been taking her blanket form her at night (since it is the only time she does it) because she has been doing it every night before bed. Should I be discouraging this behavior? Should I even acknowledge it?

Though not all children discover self-pleasuring by this age, many do. Children have been known to have orgasms at this age. (We know this from interviewing adults about this and ask them to recall their experiences.) If the child does have an orgasm, it is a fairly powerful reinforcer. As any adult knows, an orgasm feels rather good. People, young and old, tend to pursue things that feel good.

Other mothers may not know if their children do masturbate. Some children hide it well. Others do it to assist in falling asleep - often when their parents have left the room. Some would mistake it for "riding" a toy. And, some parents simply would not admit it even they thought their child did masturbate.

Even as long ago as the 1950s, Alfred Kinsey found in his research that women who masturbate to orgasm before marriage tended to be much more likely to be orgasmic in their sex during marriage. And teens and young women who know that they can create an orgasm themselves any time they want tend to be less driven to seek out a sexual partner to do that for them. They also tend to be better able to express to a partner what it is that sexually pleases them. This helps these women develop greater sexual self-esteem and feel less exploited by sexual partners.

When I work with adult women who have not yet learned to be orgasmic, the first step nearly every time is to assist these women in learning how to masturbate in their own home. I provide them encouragement and specific information about what to expect during the process of learning how to become orgasmic.

So, there are many reasons why learning to self-pleasure can result in good decision-making and good sexual fulfillment later in life.

I can, however, understand your concern when you feel like your child is fairly unusual in her pursuits. Of course, you want to suggest that she only does this in her room when she's by herself. It's a private way that she's learning her body. She may be expecting privacy when using the bathroom around this time too. So you can blend this suggestion for privacy together with that one. If you take away her blanket, she may resort to her pillow. After a while, she might be sleeping on a pillowless, blanket-free bed. I doubt that you want to create such an austere sleeping environment.

If you stigmatize her behavior, punish her, or cause her to feel guilty about it, you may set in motion some psychological concerns later on. It's not that she would necessarily be traumatized by it. I certainly know many people whose parents expressed their disapproval of self-stimulation without causing a neurosis. Yet the ones who had parents who simply wove sexuality into the everyday conversation are incredibly grateful for their parents' calm acceptance of that facet of life.

Related Topics:

• Your Guide to Masturbation
• Talking to Your Kids About Sex

California's Proposition 4: It Seems Like It's a Good Idea, But It's Not

Several people have asked me about my position on Proposition 4 and wanted more details about why I'm opposed to it. On the face of it, this seems like a good idea. What parent wouldn't want to know if his or her daughter was pregnant and thinking of having an abortion? Sounds good. But it just isn't that simple.

This proposition is a replica of Prop 73 launched in 2005 and Prop 85 in 2006. So, this is third time in three consecutive elections that proponents have sought to restrict access to abortion by a teenager. California voters have rejected the first two attempts, but some groups don't give up easily. My hunch is that they don't have close working knowledge of the lives of marginalized teens.

Here are the details of the proposed legislation and why it's not in the best interest of teen safety:

Prop 4 would amend the California Constitution to require that a state parental notification document must be used to notify the parents of a teenager of her intent to have an abortion. Or it could impose court hearings and delays before a pregnant teen under 18 may obtain an abortion. In this way, Prop 4 resembles Props 73 and 85.

But Prop 4 goes much beyond that. It would dramatically expand the liability of physicians who care for teenagers and authorizes lawsuits against them as long as decades after an abortion is performed. So, part of the purpose of this proposed legislation appears to be driving the providers of service out of business.

A physician, in my local paper, The Sacramento Bee, wrote in her letter to the editor: "As a physician who specializes in adolescent health, I am grateful to Peter Schrag for exposing the dangers of Proposition 4 ("Parental notification: Who's the real target?” Oct.7). I treat marginalized youths in Sacramento and conduct research on violence and teen health. Safe, confidential care is essential for pregnant teens, especially those in unhealthy relationships. Under Proposition 4, the pregnant girls I see may not even seek care at all."

She continued: "Doctors recognize that parents are important supports for their adolescents, and we encourage our patients to communicate with their parents when possible. Unfortunately, not all teens have the advantage of parents who care. For them, the open door to confidential care is the only avenue to guarantee their safety. By mandating parental notification and destroying confidentiality, Proposition 4 would shut out those teens who need us the most. Proponents say they are targeting sexual predators, yet they would remove the mechanism that allows us to identify abuse among the most vulnerable teens."

Prop 4 mandates a path that has hazards to teenagers - some of whom live in very dysfunctional families. These are the teens who cannot safely notify their parents or obtain court orders. Proponents state that a teenager living in an abusive home may request that notification be sent to a substitute relative over 21. But the conditions of this option are severe. To satisfy the critiera of this path, the teen must first write out a history of charges against her parents and provide the document to the physician. The physician then must send this written history to law enforcement and send the state's abortion notice to the designated substitute relative. In addition, the physician must include a letter saying that the parents have been reported to a law enforcement agency.

This really does not protect the pregnant teenager. If law enforcement pursues the report or the substitute relative calls the parents, the parents will find out about the teenager's allegations against them, her pregnancy, and her abortion.

This set of "choices" would cause some teenagers to turn to dangerous self-induced abortions or worse scenarios to avoid notification or this court process.

Of course, parents want to participate in their daughters' lives. Most pregnant teens tell one or both parents. But government cannot mandate good family dynamics and communication. That's something that must start long before a teenager thinks about abortion.

Teenagers who think that they cannot safely talk to their parents about their pregnancy tend to have good reasons for not revealing this sensitive news to their parents. The most common are:

• Their family may already be in crisis.


• They anticipate that their parents would force them to have the baby.


• Their parents are violent.


• A family relative has caused the pregnancy.

I wish that parental involvement laws could transform abusive, dysfunctional families into supportive ones. They don't. They just complicate the lives of pregnant teens when they are in a very rough time in their lives already.

Even teens who have their lives pretty together would have a difficult time following all these steps, not to mention the difficulty of having such personal information documented and discussed in court.

According to the ACLU of Northern California, the proportion of second trimester abortions for females under 18 increases in states with similar parental involvement laws. That is an undesirable side effect of that legislation. In some states, court clerks lecture minors about morals and judges refuse to hear abortion cases or they deny the petitions for personal ideological reasons.

The ACLU of Northern California spent 10 years examining the data of other states with parental involvement laws. They filed a lawsuit and the California Supreme Court ruled that this evidence overwhelmingly showed that these laws were dangerous and unconstitutional. Proposition 4 attempts to overturn the Supreme Court ruling and write this into the California Constitution.

The proponents of Prop 4 probably think that they are fostering parent-child communication. They also probably have not had much personal contact with the very group of teenagers that this law would impact the most. Otherwise, they would realize that Prop 4 is designed to inject more stress and chaos into the life of a young female who is already overwhelmed. Chances are, the families most affected by Prop 4 are not sitting at their computers reading this blog and contemplating the pros and cons of this potential legislation. Chances are, they have bigger fish to fry.

Related Topics:

• WebMD Video: Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
• WebMD Video: Teen Moms Gain Role Models