Reply to Young child believes he's gay

Forum Index » LGBTQIA+ Issues and Relationship Discussion

Reply to "Young child believes he's gay"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]We are a very progressive cisgender hetero family (DH and I) and consider ourselves allies of the LGBTQ community - many friends and family are gay, we march with them in Pride parades, donate to various organizations that support the community, etc.  Our sons have always known and understood that some people fall in love with members of the opposite sex and some people fall in love with members of the same sex and as long as people love each other and treat each other with kindness and respect that it's all fine.

My 2nd grader's peer group have recently started to talk about "crushes" and who has a crush on whom. I think my 4th grader's peer group went through the same thing around this age. We've always tried to tamp down this "crush" discussion and asked what having a crush means...usually the answer is a "special friend" or "someone that I really like spending time with." And we say that's fine but let's not make a big deal about crushes - it might embarrass people and it's just a little silly.  So, our 2nd grader told us last night that he has a crush on one of his male friends and does that mean he's gay. I responded with my typical crush discussion (which I've used when he told me last week about a girl he has a crush on) but wasn't sure about how to handle the gay question. I said something like..."it might but it also might mean that he's been extra nice to you lately and you've been having a lot of fun playing together at recess." I did say something like "you're a little young to know whether you will fall in love with a boy or a girl when you are grown up but you can always take to me and dad about how you're feeling"

So - how did I do? How could I handled the discussion better? I think this conversation is likely to come up again so would like to be prepared. Also can anyone point me to good resources for future discussions? Thanks![/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics