Talking about love and relationships
Children can be curious about the relationships they see around them. In other parts of the Chat, we have spoken about giving our children the building blocks for later relationships when they are teenagers and adults. At this age we can help our children to think about grown up relationships being built on trust, commitment and respect – and research has shown that young people associate love with these positive concepts.
It is also the case that by upper primary school some children can start to feel pressure to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, when what we want them to have is just friends that are girls or boys. And all this comes at the start of puberty for some children. It’s a lot! These suggestions might help you have conversations about love and relationships.
Talking about love
A short film with children answering the question: What is love? (3 minutes 28) https://youtu.be/T_ObrBLVqWg You could watch and chat about it together. (When you watch something on Youtube you can set it up in advance and skip adverts).
Why do people get married?
In the Questions children ask section of the Chat we answer the question in this way:
Grown-ups get married because they love each other and want to be together.
Of course, a couple can be together and live together and not get married.
For some people, maybe as part of their religion or beliefs, if a couple want to live together and have a family then they should be married first.
Pressures to have a girlfriend/boyfriend
Your child might comment about peers having girlfriends or boyfriends. You can give reassurances that you do not expect them to do this, that you are happy when they choose to have friends that are both boys and girls, as they wish. They might report some pressure they feel to have a girlfriend/boyfriend – from other children or from family members. You can talk about things directly, but these little scenarios to talk about together might help in conversation, the idea being that you as you talk about pressure they feel you can use other examples to work out best strategies:
- Lauren and Sergei usually walk home together after school. Lauren asks Sergei if she can hold his hand when they were walking home. Sergei just wants to be Lauren’s friend; he doesn’t want to hold her hand. What can Sergei say or do?
- Every time Daniel’s gran visits, she always asks in front of everyone: Haven’t you got a girlfriend yet? He gets really embarrassed. What can Daniel say or do?
- Isabella and Beth are friends. Some children are teasing them saying they must be girlfriends. This is annoying. They do really like each other but it’s nobody else’s business. What can Isabella and Beth say or do?