NSFW- Parents with older children, at what age did you suspect they began masturbating?

Kids start experimenting at various ages, but typically about the time they go into puberty and are capable of climaxing. They may touch themselves in a pleasurable way at a young age, with no idea of what masturbation is or why it feels good.

I first suspected my son when I found him with his pants down at a computer. He was 12. A kid at school with an older brother told him about a free porn site.

I started at 12, but I think the age of puberty has declined slightly.

My boys? Never! Seriously, I’m sure they did but I never “caught” them so I don’t know.

@janbb LOL! I know that’s what I’d like to think about my girls right now, but yeah right!

Just ask them…it is really a healthy open question to dicuss. My boy seemed relieved to talk about it when I finaaly asked.

I figure most kids start experimenting on themselves between 6–10yrs old at about the same time they explore sexual sensations while playing with other kids. The rule in our family has been to touch yourself in your alone time.

I was about 45 when I began to suspect my children of masturbating.

Well, my oldest son is 14. Let’s just say that he started taking a whole lot longer in the shower starting when he was around 12–13. Not coincidentally, that is about the time that he began, erm…., developing.

However, there are many levels of experimentation. Humans are sexual creatures and the discovery of one’s nature, IMHO, basically begins at birth. Heck, I remember walking in on my son when he was around 4. He was in his underwear and he had is large stuffed Winnie the Pooh doll on the floor and he was on top “wrestling” with it. (Let’s just say that it looked for all the world that Pooh would not be wearing white to his wedding…) While I’m sure that any thought of sexuality had not entered his mind, I am equally sure that he was doing what he was doing because it felt good.

Kids masturbate from infancy. Boys probably start masturbating to ejaculate around the time they start producing semen. If there’s a lag time in figuring out they’re producing semen, it probably isn’t very long. If you need to know more than that, tell-tale signs are: hiding in his room for long periods of time, socks or rags hidden under the bed (or in extreme cases, flushed down the toilet – famously explored on Weeds), fapping noises, long periods in the bathroom, loud music, and fervent denial of his masturbation habits. I know less about how girls work.

”My oldest is 10, and I have no idea if I should be expecting this sort of thing yet.”
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Yep. It’s perfectly natural for kids to masturbate when they’re as young as two years old. It freaks a lot of parents out, which leads to kids feeling ashamed of their bodies later in life, which sucks.

I have two boys ages 16 and one about to be 13 next month. I’m sure it’s happening, they’ve never told me they are, and I’ve never caught them, but we discusses it when my oldest son was about 12 and let them know that it’s going to happen and when it does it’s a very private thing that you do when your alone, with the door closed and locked.

The discussion only happen then because they had a friend that spent the night (he was about 13) that decided it was okay to pleasure himself in front of them ( I was floored). Come to find out through some investigation this little boy was not only did that at my house but at like 3 other peoples home in which he spent the night.

Bottom line boys ARE going to masturbate and I’d say about 12 is when I started noticing the SUPER long bathroom trips. It’s just important to tell them it’s natural and do it with the doors closed while alone!!!

That question actually lead me to wonder the same thing, my stepsons are 11 now… so I know it will be soon, if not already. It is definitely natural and not a big deal, unless I end up picking up stiff socks. Then I may have to lay down a ground rule or two.

My kid’s here. I’m not gonna ask…

Why do you want to know if your sprog is masturbating? It’s a safe bet s/he is, and that’s fine, but why would anyone want to know?

I don’t want to know. I just want to avoid picking up icky socks.

I would say by 13… well that’s the only reason I can imagine why my husband found my son in the computer room with no pants on…. thankfully he had the good sense to pretend he saw nothing and walk on.

Well my youngest son started at age 8. The only reason I know this is that for some strange reason he thought he was evil for it. He confided in my daughter, who is 2½ years older than him, and then swore her to secrecy.

He spent the next year periodically diving under our dining room table declaring, “I have something to tell you but you’ll hate me”. I spent a few months trying to get it out of him but he wouldn’t tell me. He finally started sobbing about it and it was that point that my daughter told me what was going on. I immediately got down on the floor and talked to him. I told him that masturbating was normal, that everyone did it even his dad, that there was nothing to be ashamed of.

I wish I had spoken to him earlier but I had no idea that boys could start so young. He could have avoided months of feelings of shame. To this day I still have no idea where those thoughts came from. We are not a family that talks about sex in a shameful way. My husband and I are openly affectionate with one another.

@tranquilsea Too bad Fluther wasn’t around then for him to post obscure references on.

@janbb True, although he’s my child that probably won’t be a contributor to on-line site such as these.