So this is one of the Key Principles that is being defined in this website. The question of the use of masturbation by children is something we feel have to at least acknowledge, let alone address. It is quite a challenging issue. Whilst we strongly advocate, as do most Christian authorities at large, that children should not be focused on sexual things prior to adolescence, the fact remains that a percentage of children discover their body’s capacity for sexual pleasure at younger ages, including the ability to reach orgasm, as these capabilities are, as far as can be determined, fully developed in human bodies at the time of birth, even though males are not capable of ejaculation until adolescence. Children may discover these capabilities as a natural result of exploring their bodies, particularly once they are out of nappies.
It is important that children are not sent harmful messages about their sexuality by treating such discoveries in an excessively negative way, but it is natural and we believe correct, for Christians to conclude that sexualisation must be avoided beyond a level that is normal for the age group. In other words, we suggest parents address the impacts of masturbation rather than masturbation itself. It appears likely that neurodiverse children are more likely to masturbate at pre-adolescent ages than other children, and ministry insights also suggest that it is now relatively common for male children to start masturbating prior to reaching adolescence. We believe in general that children who masturbate are more likely to be male as this lines up with other trends for male vs female masturbation. Children can also be more likely to masturbate if there are problems such as of an emotional nature occurring in the household or in their lives and parents should address such issues if they are concerned that children are tending to spend too much time by themselves.
Sometimes masturbation can be an outcome when sexual abuse has taken place. This issue is not specifically addressed here and there are many resources that can address this particular issue, however we do caution parents against jumping to conclusions that abuse must have occurred if their child/ren masturbate because this is often not the case at all.
For more information about this topic look at the Childhood Sexuality article category (there is a list of article categories at the bottom of every page of this site).