Childhood sexual behaviour at 4-6 years: parent education guide

Typical sexual behaviour in childhood: 4-6 years

Sexual behaviour is part of children’s overall development, including development at 4-5 years and development at 5-6 years.

At 4-6 years, children’s development includes curiosity, a growth in imagination, and an interest in friends, peers and social activities. Children learn about themselves and their world through warm, responsive relationships. And they explore, observe, experiment and solve problems through play. As part of this, it’s common for children at this age to be interested in how bodies work and how people are different from each other.

Like all behaviour, sexual behaviour is also shaped by children’s social relationships, cultural backgrounds and personal experiences.

What to expect at 4-6 years: questions, jokes and play

Here’s some developmentally typical behaviour that you might see at this age. Your child might:

explore their own body, which might include touching their own genitals or masturbating
ask questions about gender, babies, nudity, toileting and bodies
play games that involve being naked or using gender-based roles, like doctors and nurses
look at or touch the genitals of familiar children or adults in a curious way in the bath or toilet
talk and make jokes about toileting, body functions and body parts.

Why do children behave this way at 4-6 years?

Your child might behave in these ways because it’s fun or feels good. They might also do it because they’re:

learning about touch and social rules
wondering about the differences among bodies
working out how bodies work
experimenting with role-play and imagination
trying to understand families and relationships
testing limits to see what words are OK to use.

Children start developing sexually from birth, and sexual behaviour is part of this development. Sexual development is a lifelong process that includes physical changes like puberty and the beliefs children develop about bodies, relationships, gender and sexuality.

How to support healthy behaviour: tips for parents

Create a healthy family environment

Children start learning about healthy behaviour from birth, and they learn by watching how you and other adults communicate and behave. As children get older, they also learn from their friends and peers and from things they see on TV and online, and in movies, books and so on.

This means you can create a family environment that encourages healthy sexual behaviour by:

being a role model for respectful behaviour towards others
introducing ideas about consent early
looking at your family’s attitudes to gender
monitoring the apps, games, TV, movies and online videos your child engages with
checking your approach to online safety.

Talk early, talk often

At 4-6 years, one of the best ways to support healthy sexual behaviour is talking and listening. Talking and listening has many benefits. For example, you can hear what your child thinks and knows about sex, bodies and relationships. And your child can ask questions, which you can answer in honest and age-appropriate ways. These conversations also send the message that your child can always come to you for reliable, non-judgmental information about tricky topics like sexual behaviour.

You can use everyday moments or examples from TV shows, movies, books and media stories to get conversations started. Or you could read books or go online together and talk about things you come across.

Handle inappropriate behaviour calmly

Kids will sometimes behave in ways that aren’t appropriate. For example, if your child is playing ‘You show me yours, I’ll show you mine’, you could say, ‘Put your clothes on and come to the kitchen for a snack’.

Afterwards, you could talk to your child about what behaviour is OK in your home and what behaviour is OK in front of other children, other parents or teachers. For example, you could explain that although it’s OK for your child to play without their clothes on at home, it’s not OK when other people can see them.

What to do about harmful behaviour: advice for parents

Sometimes sexual behaviour in children aged 4-6 years isn’t what’s expected for their developmental stage. This behaviour is called harmful sexual behaviour.

What is harmful behaviour at 4-6 years?

Harmful sexual behaviour in children aged 4-6 years might include:

masturbating persistently even when you’ve tried to redirect them, masturbating in public or masturbating in ways that injure their genitals
using sexually explicit language aggressively or repeatedly
playing games with adult-like sexual acts
persistently trying to touch the genitals of other children, adults or animals
forcing another child to take part in sexual behaviour
trying to put an object into their own or someone else’s anus or vagina
watching pornography or showing it to other children.

Why does harmful behaviour happen at 4-6 years?

Children aged 4-6 years might behave in sexually harmful ways for many reasons. For example, it might happen because they:

have been exposed to pornography or adult sexual activity and are re-enacting what they’ve seen
are experiencing child sexual abuse or other forms of child abuse
find it hard to manage their emotions.

Children who have learning difficulties and disorders or difficulties with impulse control, social skills or rules can also be more vulnerable to engaging in harmful sexual behaviour.

Where parents can get help for harmful behaviour in children aged 4-6 years

If you’ve noticed your child engaging in harmful sexual behaviour and they keep doing it even when you ask them to stop, seek support and professional help.

A GP or child and family health nurse is a good place to start. They can refer you to an experienced health professional who can help you understand what’s happening and how to help your child.

You can also contact Kids Helpline or a child sexual safety helpline.

Harmful sexual behaviour can be upsetting. You can get support from health professionals, child sexual safety helplines and parent helplines.

More information for parents about sexual development

You can learn more about typical and harmful behaviour throughout childhood and adolescence in the following parent guides: