Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Caught in the Act: What to Do When Your Kids Walk In on You

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

What do you do when your child accidentally walks in on you and your spouse during an intimate moment? It’s one of those unexpected situations that can leave you feeling flustered and unsure of how to respond. In this Language of Love session, a listener, Kim, reaches out to me after experiencing one of those “mortifying parenting moments” when her 8-year-old son walked in on her and her husband during an intimate moment. Kim’s reaction? Shock, followed by a quick hug for her son and an attempt to smooth things over. But now she’s left wondering: Should she bring it up? Pretend it didn’t happen? Or use this as an opportunity to talk about the “birds and the bees”? During this session, we explore how these awkward moments can actually become teachable ones. While it’s natural to feel embarrassed, it’s also an opportunity to model healthy relationships, intimacy, and communication. After all, parents are their kids’ first and most important teachers about love, boundaries, and values. Here is what we tackle: The importance of modeling love and intimacy for your children. How to talk to kids about puberty and the basics of reproduction in a way that’s age-appropriate. Using family values as a foundation for these conversations. Why these “awkward” moments can set the stage for lifelong healthy attitudes about sex and relationships. The critical role of ongoing, open communication with your kids. The confidence and security kids gain when they feel informed about their bodies and emotions. Remember, it’s not about having “the talk” once and checking it off the list—it’s about fostering a conversation that evolves as your child grows. So the next time a parenting curveball comes your way, don’t panic—lean into it. You’ve got this! If you have a question or a situation you’d like me to address, you can email me at [e-mail] or visit LanguageofLovePod.com to join me on the show. See you next time! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself, and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. I have an email question from Kim, and she says, Dr. Berman, one of the most mortifying things

happened to me. Our eight-year-old son walked in on me and my husband having sex. Me and my husband both kind of yelled out of shock and our son ran out. I got dressed and went after him and gave him a hug and told him everything was okay. He seemed a bit confused, but not upset. We never talked about it again, but I feel like I need to address it. Or should I just act like nothing happened? Is he too young for this conversation? I really don't know what to do, but I feel terrible. That is such a common occurrence and there's nothing to be ashamed about for many reasons. And I'm going to tell you what to do about it and how to maybe even take advantage of this as a teachable moment. But just know this, that you are actually doing

your children a tremendous service if they are aware that you and your partner have an intimate, loving relationship separate from being their parents. Now, that doesn't mean we want them walking in on you or seeing what you're doing or watching, but a sense of it as happening and being part of your relationship is really beautiful because you are their model for what a loving relationship looks like and feels like and what to expect from love. And I can tell you sitting with as many couples as I do on a day-to-day basis who are really struggling to be intimate, to stay in intimacy in a long-term relationship, a lot of it started because they didn't have a model of that growing up.

So now I have to help them create that model and create a different reality. So I'm just putting that in the mix so that you understand that you didn't do anything wrong. I mean, yes, put a lock on the door from now on, but there's nothing wrong with your kids knowing that mommy and daddy are going to have some private time,

knowing that it happens, not being privy to it or knowing the details of it, but being aware of it is a good thing. Now, how to address things specifically with your son. he's eight years old. What that means, it seems young. I understand that. But if you can believe it, a huge proportion anywhere, depending on the stats you look at it, between 30 and 70% of girls are going into adolescence, meaning beginning their menses and starting to develop breasts at age nine. Okay. So he's right on the cusp of it. Now, does that mean that he's going

to start going through adolescence. Girls typically go through adolescence sooner than boys, but boys are starting to go through it sooner as well, not as soon as girls, but he's going to be around it. And so I have been saying for years, in large part because of this, you need to be talking to your kids at this age about the basic mechanics of certainly their development and adolescence and starting to make sperm and eggs and ovulation, you teach your children about all genders, not just about their gender, so that they understand and so things aren't as mysterious. And then they feel less freaked out and less crazy and less scared and also less likely to tease their peers if they understand what's happening and to be more empathetic. And also

to understand themselves better by understanding boys, understanding girls helps them understand themselves better too. So you want to explain all of that to him as like, these are the basics of what to expect. You're not there yet, but in the next several years, you're going to start having these physical symptoms, emotional symptoms, hormonal symptoms, the changes that are going to happen. Okay. That's the first part. The second part, this is also the time to talk about the basics of how babies are made. So this is where you have an opportunity to start inserting your own family values. Okay. So what I would suggest is you circle back to your son and you say, listen, I've been thinking about what happened the other night. And I really want to follow up

with you because what you saw was something, what you walked in on was some very special private time that happens. Now here's where you insert your values. When two people are grown up and married, when, like what we said to our children, when two people love each other and only want to be with each other and both of them really want to, then, you know, you can put in any premise you want, then those grownups touch each other in a very special way and hug in a very special way. That is really something that people in grownup, loving, married, whatever relationships do. That's all you have to say to him at this point around what he walked in on. Now, when you're having, and you say, you know, but this also brings up a really important

point because I think you're now at the age where you really need to understand you're a little young now. It's probably not going to happen for a couple of years, but I want you to understand because you may start seeing some of your friends in school starting to change and go into what's called adolescence or to go through what we call puberty. And that's the path to becoming an adult. And so you explain that to them and you explain what happens to the body.

You can get my book, which is called, no surprise, Talking to Your Kids About Sex. But there's lots of books out there. It helps to have a book because you get all the facts right. And also you can kind of read it with them. And then you say, and, and so at eight or nine, here's how I would be explaining sex.

I would be saying, okay, so when two grownups, love each other, insert your own values there, right? Are only with each other, are monogamous, are married, are 50, I don't care. You insert your own family values there. Then they touch and connect with each other in a really special way. So you've already explained adolescence to him,

which includes the fact that he's gonna start producing sperm. He's gonna start having erections, how erections work and what causes them and how natural they are and how in the beginning they'll happen spontaneously and randomly and often when he doesn't expect it. But sometimes when he's having a special thought or thinking about someone he really likes or feels special toward, he may get an erection and that he'll also start

producing sperm. And then as part of that conversation, you can say, look, you know, what happens is sperm are the seed that fertilizes the egg that the woman has. And that's what creates a baby. Okay. You can keep it as simple as that. Now, since he walked in on you, you can also say when two people love each other or married, blah, blah, blah, whatever your values are, then they sometimes have sex sometimes to have a baby, but often not to just as a way to love each other. And what happens is the man's penis gets hard. He gets an erection, which you've now learned about starts to happen much younger before he's ready to have sex. But eventually one day, he will use those erections for sex. And he inserts the penis into whatever. You could say

the woman, the man, whatever you want, depending on your values and depending how extensive you want to talk. I have parents who want to make the conversation totally not heteronormative, as we would say. So they would say, and the man's erect penis goes in the woman's vagina. And you've already told him about all the anatomy of the woman, the vagina, the vulva, the labia, the clitoris, the menstruation, and how each month she ovulates and an egg gets released. Don't be overwhelmed by this. I promise you, all you need is a good book to spell it out for you. And you can explain this. Hey, it's Dr. Laura Berman.

I've been a sex, love, and relationship therapist for over 30 years. And the main question I always get asked is, how the heck do we spice it up in a long-term monogamous relationship? Well, if you want to take your love life, your sex life to the next level, whether you're in a relationship or not, check out my free course on quantum sex. It's going to teach you how to take your sexual response to the next level, capable of full body orgasms, how to use sex magic to manifest your dreams and how to connect on an even deeper level sexually with your partner. Just go to drlauraberman.com and you'll find it right there

on the homepage, the quantum sex free course. Check it out and let me know what you think. and so you say the penis goes into the vagina or you could say are into the anus or whatever but in the beginning i would just keep it really basic and if they're going to have a baby then when he ejaculates and the semen comes out one of those sperm meets the egg in the woman's that is just ovulated. And then it fertilizes that egg. And then the fertilized egg drifts into the center of the uterus. And you've already explained all of this to them before you explain the mechanics of sex. And then a baby can start to grow. And you can even add in religion here with God's blessing or the miracle is. I mean, you can do this in so many different ways that have your

family values wrapped around them. But here's what you have to know is explaining what's happening at age eight or nine, when you explain the mechanics of sex, they are not envisioning what you are envisioning when you talk about sex. They're looking at it like a geometry puzzle. This goes in there and why would you put this there? And that comes out of this. And they're thinking about it very mechanically. And so if you act very matter of fact about it and also speak to the beautiful act it is under the right circumstances, and I, as your parent, I'm telling you the right circumstances, then it can be a really beautiful, wonderful thing. So you can give this information in the context of whatever your family values are.

The thing to know, really important, and the study after study has vetted this and shown this, that having this information not only makes kids more confident in themselves, understand their bodies better, manage adolescence better, but it actually will protect them more when it's time to have sex. And this isn't just one conversation that you're having when he's eight or nine years old. This is an ongoing conversation. That's the subtitle of my book. The title is Talking to Your Kids About Sex. The subtitle is Turning the Talk into a Conversation for life because it is not just one talk. It is an ongoing conversation where those teachable moments every step of the way. So you see something come out about a teen girl got pregnant. Then you

talk about some more stuff there, or you keep the door open so that he can ask questions. You know, the fact that you're going to go back and talk to him and circle back with him, you always want to say to him, you can ask me anything. There's no question off limits. I can't say I'll always know the answer off the top of my head, but I will always find out. And so if he asks you a question that freaks you out or you don't know how to answer, just say, that's a really good question. I'm going to get back to you and definitely get back to them in a timely manner. But you have to understand that information never means permission. You're always wrapping it around the right context to have sex in and under, and you are actually setting them up so that they know how their bodies

work. They don't feel shame about their bodies. And they really see you as a resource and as someone who they don't have to be afraid asking questions to or coming to with important issues that are coming up in their lives. And so I think you can frame this for him of like what you walked in on is something that only adults do under spell out the circumstances. And in this case, you know, daddy and I weren't trying to have a baby, but we were just loving each other in the special way that grownups who are married, who love each other, who like each other, you know, whatever you want to say, do. And one day when you are that, you'll probably want to do it too, because it's really nice and it feels really good when it's done with someone under these

circumstances. That is just going to make him feel more secure, more confident, not talking about it or trying to sweep it under the rug, makes it into something that's a little weird. He walked in on something that in his mind was really weird. And then you acted weird after it. I mean, it's good you went and checked on him, but you never circled back and explained anything. And he saw your reaction that it was a big deal that he walked in. So I'm sure he's wondering about it. Hopefully, that gives you some guidance. And lots of other people have this question too, which is why I'm really excited you asked it. One of the most common questions I get from people is how to talk to your kids about sex or what to do if they walk in, nothing bad happened. This is actually a

teachable moment. And what I want you to do is to continue to look for those teachable moments. And this is a time to have those conversations. Once they get into adolescence, it's really hard to get through to them. If you implant a lot of this information now, not that you stop talking to them when they get to adolescence, they at least have the core information while they're still open to learning from you and still believe that you know a thing or two and have something to teach them. So keep us posted on how that goes. And you remember that if you have a question you want me to answer, you can always email me at languageoflovepod at gmail.com or go to languageoflovepod.com or go to drlauraberman.com. You can come on the show

and ask live or like Kim, you can send in an email. I'll see you next time.