My Family - mums, dads, same and mixed *** families

[Ruthierhyme]

Mums and Dads, Nans and Grandads, My family poster or collage & mark making activity sheet is now available from this section of the site.

Use to support same and mixed *** parents / famillies, their relationships and partnerships.


Link male and female/boy, girl/lad, lass/dude & dudette to encourage discussion that involves home.

Gay-Straight alliance on wikipedia

Gender awareness at around 3 - 5 years - source Developemnt milestones Warwickshire's CYPW

Early sexual awareness

For background information the Mermaids website is an informative read.

Gender Identity and gender development:
From gender categories

• Children's developing understanding of gender can be described as a search for certainty.
• Young children make mistakes about gender illustrating their rigidity and their naive certainty regarding gender:

Johnny (age 41/2) I'm going to be an airplane builder when I grow up.
Jimmy (age 4) When I grow up, I'll be a mommy.
Johnny No, you can't be a mommy. You have to be a daddy.
Jimmy No, I'm going to be a mommy.
Johnny No, you're not a girl, you can't be a mommy.
Jimmy Yes, I can.

Source: Kohlberg, 1966, p. 95

• As children's knowledge of gender grows in complexity, basic biological knowledge is added to their social-cultural understanding.
• Research by Francis illustrating girls' ‘sensible-selfless’ and boys' ‘silly-selfish’ behaviour demonstrates how gender identities are constructed and maintained.
• Children's knowledge of gender in relation to their own identity and that of others develops both in terms of flexibility (in that they can accommodate diversity) and in reliability.
• Masculine and feminine identities are not fixed, partly because identities are multidimensional. Diversity arises through the existence of masculinities and femininities.

Lawrence Kohlberg on wikipedia