Reproductive Disorders Open Access

Presently, our knowledge of children’s sexuality and sexual development can be viewed as somewhat fragmentary; empirical research has been carried out by a number of researchers resulting in a small increase in the volume of published information. The scarcity of scientific knowledge in the area is also likely to be reflected in our present guidelines in assessments of children that display sexually problematic behaviour and in the treatment of child sexual abuse cases. A problematic sexualized behaviour may also be a precursor to sexual offending or a sign of underlying emotional problems which is why it is so important for clinicians as well as educators and parents to be able to detect an abnormal or sexualized behaviour compared to a normal sexual behaviour, in order to help the child. The lack of previous studies of normal sexual behaviour in the age group 7-13 years was the driving force behind this study. To investigate sexual behaviours, types and frequencies, among Swedish children in the age group of 7-13 years, as observed and reported by their parents and to give professionals in different areas a greater knowledge of sexual behaviour among younger school children. The parents of 418 children answered questionnaires about their child’s behaviour, both general and sexual, and about their own attitudes. We found that most sexual behaviours we asked about were reported by the parents as common, and are in part related to, or vary with, age and gender. A small number of sexual behaviours often referred to as problematic behaviour were found to be very unusual in this normative group of Swedish children. Behaviours usually referred to as sexualized and problematic were rare in this normative sample of children at 7-13 years of age. The results are of importance for clinicians’ evaluation of sexual behaviours reported by parents. Parents’ Observations and Reports on the Sexual Behaviour of 7 to 13 Years Old Children: Å A Kastbom, I Larsson and C G Svedin.

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Last date updated on April, 2024