Relationships & Sexuality Education

Starting sexuality education for your loved one from a young age increases its effectiveness and lays the foundation for future sexuality education in their adolescent years. This helps your loved one manage emotions and interactions with others in a healthy and safe manner. Preparing ahead will also help you manage expectations and become more comfortable and confident when discussing these topics with your loved one.

While your loved one may receive sexuality and relationship education in school, it is important for you to also address these topics with them at home, leveraging on teachable moments.

Topics on sexuality and relationship education

To help your loved one learn better, you can adapt the topics to better suit their age and gender.

• Topics that can be discussed from early childhood include¹
  • Human body parts, functions, and gender differences
  • Personal hygiene
  • Modesty in public and private settings (e.g., dressing / undressing should only take place in the bathroom / bedroom)
  • Relationship boundaries with family, friends, teachers, and strangers (e.g., identifying unknown individuals as strangers and learning to not follow strangers around)
  • Appropriate and inappropriate touch (e.g., differentiating between wanted and unwanted hugs pats, dealing with pinching, or hitting behaviours)


• Topics suitable for adolescents include²:
  • Dealing with neurological/hormonal and physical changes to the body (e.g., rising of hormonal levels and start of menstrual cycle)
  • Appearance and personal hygiene
  • Coping with changes in thoughts and emotions
  • Understanding and managing feelings and sexual desires

For more resources and support on sexuality education, you can consult professionals from Special Education (SPED) schools and enroll for workshops on this topic.

Tips for more effective sexuality and relationship education

Explaining sexuality and gender relationships to your loved one can be challenging. Consider the way they think and learn in approaching the topics. You can seek help from professionals or adopt the following strategies:

• Use simple language and avoid technical terms.
• Tap on visual aids to explain concepts.
• Help your loved one identify boundaries and societal expectations for behaviour according to their biological age.
• Adapt the content and amount of information to share with your loved one to their developmental age.

When your loved one reaches adolescence, they may face challenges managing their relationships (friendship or otherwise) and interactions with the other party.

It is therefore important to help your loved one understand what a healthy relationship involves. You can focus on these areas:

• Building trust and establishing mutual respect
• Setting and respecting personal boundaries of self and others
• Resolving conflicts and differences

Helping your loved one build intimate relationships

It is important to help your loved one understand what it means to be in an intimate relationship. This includes understanding the commitment and responsibilities involved and learning to manage expectations. For example, some of them may misunderstand a romantic partner’s role to be that of a caregiver, or someone who is there to take care of their needs. You can help them clarify this misunderstanding and reset their expectations on what a relationship entails.