Schools stumble over sex education

what is that? the picture, i mean?

Looks like the Northern Lights to me... (Aurora Borealis.)

Yes, soz, looks like it, indeed.

I'd love to see the Northern Lights.

exactly! And hope you like this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/flash/photo/travel/northernlights/Main_NorthernLights.swf

We get Northern lights fairly frequently around here ... anything from gentle, pale glows to rippling waves of shifting color. I remember once, many years ago (when I was much, much younger and far more adventurous), I had devoted much of a Music Festival Weekend to recreational pharmacueticals. Thinking most of the chemical fun had run its course, I settled onto my back on a comfy spot of ground to begin The Big Sleepoff so as to ready myself for the morrow's long drive home, and was mesmerized by what I assumed was a bit of lingering perceptual augmentation ... a freebie, a bonus, so to speak. I was a little disappointed to hear sudden exclamations from all about regarding the Northern Lights display underway. Oh well, sharing is good, but I think that's the only time I ever confused something real with a halucination.

Here is a cross section of a penis floating in space. Don't have sex. Don't do drugs. Especially do not do drugs and have sex and the same time. Now excuse me class, while I go take a smoke break...

I understand your point Montana. however; I feel that teens do not talk openly to their parents about sex and many parents are not aware that their "babies" are actually having sex. There are very few that are going to come up to their parents and say "hey, I don't know how to put on a condom without it breaking" or say "is it true that you can get herpes from oral sex?"... Many parents would be shocked if they heard this from their 14 year old, or 13 year old...
everywhere they look they see sex: in movies, in comercials, downtown, in perfume adds.... it's not going away.
I really thin that sex should not be so TABOO. It should be easy to talk about it and get information... Restricting information from 'thirsty for knowledge' teens seems un fair...
It's great if you are willing to answer and have all the answers for all the questions that might arise. But there are many parents who know very little or/and are uncomfortable with discussing such issues that the schools must take it into their own hands to make sure that all children are properly informed.

Eileen
I didn't wait until my son started asking questions before I gave him the answers and parents shouldn't wait until their kids ask because most of them are to embarrassed to ask their parents. I started slow in teaching my son long before he was 13 or 14 like all parents should in my opinion.

I agree that children need that sex ed and I don't have a problem with the schools teaching it as long as there is parental consent. The schools would have never gotten my consent if they had ever asked for it and I was furious when I learned that they take these matters into their own hands without involving the parents. What they were teaching my son in school at a very early age was totally unacceptable to me and they heard about it. I agree with you is saying that kids not getting a sex education is unfair, but that's a family issue that doesn't belong in the schools.

My parents always told me exactly where babies came from. I think I was two when I first asked, and I learned about the penis and the vagina, sperm and egg, pregnancy, and birth. It was a little groos, but better than being lied to or pushed aside.

People act like it is the media encouraging teens to be sexual - puberty releases scads of sex hormones. And don't forget that our civilization is unusual in how late we have sex and get married, probably a result of longer lives and continued education. Our bodies are ready to go as early as 13, and continue to make the desire for sex very clear throughout teenagedom. Not to say that it should be acted on, but it's not Britteney Spear's fault.

I will encourage my kids to have sex with who they love, when they are ready, and if they do make that decision and are sure about it, to use mondo contraception (unless they are at the point where they want and can take care of babies).

I think sex ed should cover all methods of birth control - humans are built to have sex, and to tell them they can't until they get married is a religious notion. They should teach that abstinance is o.k., but if that's all they teach, the people who do decide to copulate will not get the info they need. I also believe they should know about abortion (safe and legal abortion). And that some people masturbate (but not show them how or technique - just to let them know they are not alone or a freak). I don't think they should be taught sex positions or technique, that kind of information can be gathered from various sources, more accurately than say, information about birth control.

I guess I was fortunate to have a parochial education. Sex never reared its ugly head in the classroom. I hadda get my learnin' in that field right from the source ... there's no substitute for practical experience.

I couldn't have said it better PS. I have covered everything you mentioned except sexual positions of course. I have no problem buying my son condoms either.

Hah! My aunt used to buy "communal family condoms" - take them if you need them, but she would sneak and cout them every night.
Of course we would take them, just to make her nervous

Timberlandko, practical experience is good for learning what to do, but doesn't have much to do with latex and hormone dosages.

I think Eileen said it very well: how many parents are willing and prepared to explain their 14-year olds how exactly to put on a condom, or how exactly it works with oral sex, STD's etc? I mean, most are just not. In an ideal world every one would be, and its great if you were willing and able to answer questions like those two to your 14-year old son, Montana, but there's just too many parents who are too queasy.

So its obviously a good thing if those kids receive reliable information from elsewhere. And Timber, I dunno about there being "no substitute for practical experience". I mean, damn, I wished I'd been just a li'l bit better prepared about what exactly one could do with what, and how, when I first got together with a girl. First time I slept with a girl - I was 16 - I didnt know about a thing called clitoris .. nor about female orgasm .. nothing. Nor about condoms, for that matter - only that they were there, and that you should use 'em, cause the first give-em-away-free-to-stop-AIDS campaigns had just started. I was quite utterly hapless, and since her parents hadnt encouraged her to be much vocal about anything like that either, I quite remained so. Only got my second chance a coupla years later, and it took another few years & a partner or two who was actually ready to explain all about it, to really get the hang of all that could be involved.

If only there'd been a little more explanation! If only we'd been a little bit less embarassed to talk about it all! I think theres been great progress in that field since then - just one generation under me, and they're so incredibly - vocal - about all those things - I think thats cool. All the more reason to make sure they know the how-to's of safe sex as well, of course, but still - good for them.

So. They need to be getting their info away from home, since at most homes they wont get it - seems we agree on that. Remaining question, then: should parents have to give their consent first? But so many parents dont want their "babies" to know anything about it! Like Eileen said. Or perhaps, somewhere they know its good, so they'll tacitly accept it, but if you'd ask them, they'd say "no".

But if they got their way, their "babies" will get into great trouble! No mistake: if parents refuse to allow schools to provide reliable sex ed to their kids, and they dont do it themselves either, too many of those kids will be getting pregnant, will be getting STDs ... Do we really want to accord parents the right to deny their children information those children might damn well need to stay out of harm's way? Montana, you say on the one hand "kids not getting a sex education is unfair", but on the other hand that that is "a family issue" ... but is parents putting their children into harm's way a mere family issue?

I'm sorry if I get a bit passionate about alla this but there are way too many parents putting their children into harm's way already. I mean, I know this thread is just about sex ed - but the conversation we'd been having before on this thread was also about a Q of principle - should parents always have the final say about anything concerning their children? Or do people around the family (school, church, neighbours) have the obligation to - not necessarily override the parents - but at least constitute alternative sources of information, alternative sources of care, points of trust where children and teenagers can go to for the info and refuge their parents might not be willing to give or even sign off their approval on?

This is an issue that I know you, Montana, for one, feel strongly about because you have such an awful story to tell about how schools etc tried to "override" you and almost really hurt your child. But there's other stories too. A very close friend of mine has another story to tell: a story of a little girl who was abused horribly, and grew up into a teenager who tried to kill herself - and no one ever intervened - they found her suicide notes, and still noone intervened - because they didnt want to get into the mother's business - it was a "family affair", after all, and it was not done to meddle - mother knows best, after all ... only thing the local vicar/reverend got involved about after the suicide attempt was the "danger" of the music she was listening to - pathetic. I hate this assumption that the mother, the parents, somehow biologically or genetically get to "know best" whats good for their child, and will act on that, and we shouldnt interfere. Many parents are absolutely helpless and clueless - and who can blame some of them, when they had children when they were mere children themselves - and too many children are harmed as a result. Every year 3,500 children die from mistreatment in the developed nations alone - in America, 24 out of a million children, and that figure's generally assumed an underrepresentation - and of course only a tiny minority of children who are mistreated actually die, so the overall maltreatment figures are much much much higher.

These figures are simply too high to any longer adhere to a "parent-knows-best" policy as a matter of principle. Perhaps it worked better when children were raised in extensive families, with grandparents, aunts and uncles and myriad brothers and sisters chipping in, helping to raise the kid and keeping an eye out on how the parents are doing, and when something threatened to go wrong. But in these times of relatively Do-It-All-Yourself nuclear families with just the one or two parents, and one point four children, we just can't afford that kind of thing any longer. The welfare of children is not just a "family business" - children are not their parents' property - they are individual people with individual rights that parents have no right to embargo.

Anyway ... <it seems I've gotten a bit carried away> ... err, to climb down from the theoretical pulpit with all its passionate preaching, and get back to the more mundane level of the topic at hand ... yeh, I think sex ed is one of those rights ...

We've sure been around this topic a few times. I still don't think children belong to parents. I still don't think that it is generally beneficial for parents to have the right to prevent children from learning what they need to learn.

I have heard this once too often: "I don't know how she got pregnant. We've never even talked about sex with her." It simply infuriates me. I want to quite literally slap those people.

I was in a very nice, upscale store last Sunday. What I perceived as a little girl carrying her baby sister in a Snuggli was... a twelve-old girl (I overheard her telling her age to another shopper) with her baby, shopping with her slightly older sister and their mother. I really don't understand it.

Teach them what they need to learn. If they are being home-schooled, test them to make sure they are learning what they need - and that includes sex education before they're 10.

Amen to both nimh and ehBeth.

I hear what you all are saying and I still stand behind the fact that I taught my son everything he needs to know about sex and no one had the right to push their way past me and teach him their version of sex ed. I honestly don't think you all realize what they are actually teaching these kids. When these kids are taught about sex in the schools, the schools don't even mention love, as if sex was suppose to be treated like an everyday thing like shopping. I know first hand what they're teaching these kids in school as young as age 10 and it's bad enough for me to call it abuse.

so montana, what about all those kids whose parents won't talk to them about sex? I respect you for talking to your son and I agree that, in a perfect world, all parents would teach them about sex, love, and morals/values...
but if parents chose to not talk to them and children do not have the schools teaching them, then who will??

Nobody's saying you didn't, Montana - how would we even presume to know?

What we seem to agree on, however, is that there are a lot of parents who don't do what you did.

We also seem to agree that you cant force those parents to follow your good example and teach their kids about (safe) sex themselves.

What we seem to disagree on, then, is - if I can summarise it correctly - that I think that in cases like those, its a good thing that the school will provide this information - no matter what the parents in question think about it. While you think that those parents have the right to forbid their schools to provide their children with this information as well. Did I get that right?

I have no problem with sex ed in schools,but I have a problem with some of the things taught under the guise of sex ed.
I dont want my kids learning about the gay lifestyle,or about how to masturbate,or that being gay is normal and ok for them.I dont mind those subjects,but a parent should have the right to decide what their child is taught.
Here is an interesting article about sex ed in schools.I will post a link,because I dont like cut and paste unless it is absolutely neccessary...http://www.soundvision.com/Info/education/sex/sexpub.asp

Read the article,IMHO,it details everything wrong with modern sex ed in schools.