According to Osho, children should be told the facts of life truthfully—but not indiscriminately or by age alone. Wait for the child’s own inquiry and respond with honest, appropriate answers; don’t lie or evade. Suppression breeds ignorance and perverse curiosity; truthful, timely guidance—covering body, feelings, and the sacred dimension of sex—cultivates healthy understanding and trust.
Tell kids the truth about sex when they ask, in a way they can understand, instead of hiding it or giving too much too soon.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, do you feel that a child should be given the freedom to inquire about the facts of his birth and about sex?
The ignorance of our society and the traditional foolishness of parents is what spoils children. It is not obvious to us on the surface, because when children create such messes we want to make our old rules even stricter: “Look, everything is going wrong—tighten the old rules.” And we do not see that it is because of those very rules that the mess is happening. Make them stricter and the disorder will only increase. I want to give unconditional freedom to the whole of life. No one has the right to stop anyone. But freedom is not license. And the curious thing is: a free person is never licentious; only the dependent person becomes licentious. Dependence unnerves so much that dependence is one extreme. When the dependent man gets a chance, the other extreme is his licentiousness. He never pauses in the middle, where freedom is. If you lock a…
Osho, should children be told all the facts of life, irrespective of their age?
IT HAS always been a problem down the ages -- what to tell children and what not to tell. Parents have been very much concerned. In the past the strategy was not to tell about the facts of life, to avoid it as far as possible, because people were very much afraid about the facts of life. The very phrase 'facts of life' is a euphemism; it simply hides a simple thing. Not to say anything about sex, even to avoid the word 'sex' they have made this metaphor, 'facts of life'. What facts of life? -- it is just not to say anything about sex. The whole past of humanity has lived with that deception, but the children discover sooner or later. And in fact they discover sooner than later, and they discover in a very wrong way. Because no right person is ready to tell them, they have…
What do you say about sex education for small children?
Truth is truth, and nobody should be debarred from it. Just because children are small, do they have to be fed on lies? Is truth only for grown-ups? Does that mean truth is dangerous for the delicate consciousness of the child? Truth is never dangerous, untruth is dangerous. And if you tell an untruth to the grown-up he may be able to defend himself; it can be forgiven. But never tell an untruth to the child, because he is so helpless, so indefensible. He depends so much on you, he trusts so much in you -- don't betray him. This is betraying! Telling any lie means you have betrayed the child. And finally you will be in trouble. Sooner or later, the child will discover that you have been telling lies. That very day, all trust in you will disappear. If young people start rebelling against the parents, the responsibility…
Osho, can children understand the truth?
RAJ, CHILDREN CAN UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH but cannot understand that they understand it. They understand more clearly than you can understand because they are more clean, more innocent; but they are so innocent that they cannot understand that they understand. Hence you need another childhood, a second childhood. First you have to lose your first childhood. That is the whole meaning of the biblical story of Adam and Eve losing paradise: that is losing the first childhood. It is a tremendously significant story. It has so many meanings, it is such a multi-dimensional parable, that I don't think there exists any other parable comparable to it. You can look at it from many aspects. It is losing the first childhood -- which is inevitable. Adam and Eve are not committing a sin. In fact, the word "sin" comes from a root which means forgetting, and that is a beautiful meaning:…
Osho, but in India the situation is such that about sixty to seventy percent of people don’t even have clothes to wear. Their children roam about like that. Even then this atmosphere is created.
No, no, no. Where! We only say such things. Perhaps they don’t have proper clothes, they have only rags—but with rags too we manage the same thing that someone in the costliest clothes would do. It’s a matter of the mind. Even when clothes aren’t available—even when there are no clothes—we still do the same. And still I would say to you: village children don’t have that allure your city children have. The village child is healthier. “That is for decent looking. Parents feel the children should look decent, and that’s why they ask, not for sex reasons.” That “decent”… Sex itself is an indecency for you. The present state of sex is also an indecency. If a child asks you any question about sex, you stop him: “This is an indecent question! Don’t ask this in front of everyone! Don’t ask this—be quiet!” Your notion of decency is very…