But How'd I Get in There in the First Place? Talking to Your Young Child About Sex
The "Go Parents!" series (e.g., Teaching Your Children Good  Manners) is designed to infuse the task of carrying out parental  responsibilities with humor and enjoyment. The latest entry  tackles sexuality issues. Berkenkamp, a mother of four, and  Atkins, a child psychologist, offer basic advice and information  on what to expect for each age group, toddler to age 12, with a  short sample question-and-answer section at the end. In a useful  twist, they recommend asking children what they think is the  answer to a question before beginning an explanation. Each  chapter contains a games-and-activities section, a nice feature.  This book is accessible, easy to read, and free of intellectual  leanings. Recommended for public libraries with the caveat that  it does not address teenagers. Roffman is a certified sexuality educator and author of Sex and  Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About  Sex. Like her first book, this one takes a highly intellectual  approach while conveying information through an excellent "five  universal needs" structure (i.e., affirmation, information  giving, values clarification, limit setting, and anticipatory  guidance). But there are few sample dialogs, questions raised in  one section may be answered unexpectedly much later or sometimes  not at all, and the author assumes upper- to middle-class  intellectual/cultural background and knowledge. An optional  purchase; better buys are Sol and Judith Gordon's Raising a  Child Responsibly in a Sexually Permissive World, which also  addresses disabled youth, and Mary Calderone and James Ramey's  Talking with Your Child About Sex, still valuable for its  copious sample questions and answers. Martha Cornog, PhiladelphiaCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.