The Self Explore Talk with 8 Yr Old Daughter

i personally would just have the puberty talk with her so that she is prepared for her breasts to come in, for hair to start to grow, for her period, things like that. Just let her know that you want her to be prepared. Let her know its her body and she needs to be familiar with it to know if something is wrong or not, so touching her breasts or vulva is totally fine, just as long as it is in private.
www.healthystrokes.com is also a great website for things like this. It is geared a little more toward older kids, but there is a lot of great information!

Are you trying to encourage her to do this, or to discourage her? I'm assuming you are talking about masturbation. If she is doing this, simply let her know that this is a private thing that is done with the door closed in your room. At 8, she should know that this is not accepable behavior to do in front of other people - remember, this is not a toddler, she is a not more than a couple of years away from starting puberty so it's definitely time to start discussing sexuality and body changes. Good luck

When I was that age, I was taught that it is important for your health to know your body, even down there. If you know what it looks and feels like healthy, then you know there may be a problem if it looks and feels different.

I would address it with her as more of a health issue and knowing your own body rather than masturbation. Encourage her to lock the door for privacy and use a mirror to explore what her own body looks like. Also encourage her to come to you in private and ask questions about what she is seeing and feeling.

Good luck, this is a though one

I guess I am a little confuse as to what your question is. I think you need to give us a bit more information. Is she asking questions? Have you seen her masterbating? Is she clueless and you are trying to prep? Is it something you think she should be doing? Are you talking about masterbation or just getting to know her body and the responds that it gives her. I do not think any 2nd or 3rd grader should be attempting sexual pleasure normally, (bodies are not at that point) but do think they should fully start to understand their bodies. I think they should know all body parts, the functions and what it looks like. To give you a full answer, we need a little more background. Now a PP said she does not believe in a girl ever self pleasuring herself... That I do disagree with once the girl is a teenager. I feel once a girl reaches maturity, she needs to realize there are other ways to get pleasure than some guy. If they are ashame of their bodies and that guy comes along and gives them that "magical" feeling, they flip head over heels about the guy and look for that guy and other guys to help them with "magical" moments. Now I do not agree with the therapist on Oprah who says to buy your child a vib once they get to maturity, but I do think they should realize a guy does not have anything special to give them in that department; so do not go seek it from them. The ones who only think those feelings come when a guy does a certain thing to them, end up in my office at a early age.....

Tell her to keep it in her room??

Your question isn't specific enough.

Ok, maybe I'm living in the dark ages, but I don't believe it is "normal" for an eight year old to be masterbating. My first question is, what has she been exposed to? If this is happening, has she seen pornography or rated R movies? Has someone molested her? If she has never been exposed to these things, is it more of what does my body look like?
I have a daughter the same age, and I have always been careful to not allow her to be corrupted by the sexualisation of this culture. Yes, sex is normal, but it is not before puberty.

Tell her it's normal, and it's also private.

Do you mean physically or exploring herself like getting to know who she really is, want, need?

I completely disagree with the last respondant; it's totally normal for children of all ages to explore their bodies. They are their own bodies after all. There is nothing wrong or "dirty" about it - that's the crummy kind of message a lot of us unfortunately got back in the "dark ages", and I think it's responsible for a lot of problems people face now. Be open and treat it as normal. I agree with most other folks that it belongs in private; I'm already having these discussions with my 4 year old. He knows where babies come from (has a 10 month old sister) and I think it'll make it easier for us to talk about sex when he's older if we answer all his questions accurately, but age appropriately, now. Easier for me mostly; I'm a little shy:)

Good luck and thanks for the post!

I would wait for her to bring up the subject, and talk to her about understanding her body and what happens at puberty to know how to take care of herself but I don't think masturbation or sexual exploring is very appropriate to talk to an 8 year old about unless they bring it up themselves - but if they are thinking about this kind of thing at 8 yrs old I would wonder about what they are exposed to that is making them think about this before they even hit puberty because I don't think that should be the case. I don't think masturbation is a healthy or beneficial activity in general because it teaches the person that sexuality is about pleasing yourself, and that mindset carries over into marriage and instead of sexuality being about intimacy between two people and pleasing your spouse like it should be, it remains about ones own sexual pleasure (this is just one reason).