Promoting healthy sexuality: guidelines for infancy through preschool

Family is the most important first source of learning about sexuality issues. Parental attitudes and behaviors begin to shape feelings about "maleness" and "femaleness"; thus parents are the focus of teaching healthy sexuality to infants and children. The purpose of this article is to provide the clinician with practical information to promote healthy sexuality in children from infancy through preschool ages. A set of guidelines is presented for the infant, toddler, and preschooler that covers the assessment, rationale, and plan for the clinician. A parental patient education sheet is also presented for each of the age groups (i.e., the infant, toddler, and preschooler). The parental guidelines offer important information for the parent in how to best deal with sexuality issues during each main developmental task. Additionally, a sexuality-values scale is provided. This scale can be used to provide the clinician with information regarding the parents' sexuality knowledge, values, and beliefs (as influenced by their social circumstances, culture, and religion).