Ontario Study Supports Sex Education for All School Aged Children
June 12th, 2009
A recent Ontario study of teens’ knowledge about sex found that youth don’t have enough accurate information when making sexual choices. The study suggests kids need information that goes beyond the mechanics of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), pregnancy and birth control, and that sexual health education should be offered to kids starting in Kindergarten. Sounds great to me. To those who say that five year olds don’t need sexual health information, I’ll tip my hat to BC sex educator Meg Hickling’s naming it “body science,” and say get on with it. Accurate, age-appropriate information provides kids knowledge about how bodies work. Starting young means everyone involved in the education (including the adults!) has time to reflect and discuss things over years, instead of in the hormonal rush up to adolescence. In fact, if you introduce the topic when they’re as young as five, you might have more receptive students than you would in nervous eleven year olds who think they know all they need or are too embarrassed to ask questions.
Morality is often cited as a reason to withhold sex education. I’ve talked to parents who argue that telling kids about sex is equal to encouraging it, and I disagree. Respectfully supporting kids to learn about their bodies and what changes will occur isn’t suggesting kids become sexually active. It’s giving them information so they can take care of themselves. One commenter on the CBC coverage of the Ontario study said, “Tell a 14-year-old girl who is pregnant or dying of AIDS that it could have been prevented by giving her truthful information, but you thought that would be immoral. See what she says.”
Regretfully, many kids have been sexually abused by the time they hit adolescence, so withholding information from them doesn’t save them. In her book, More Speaking about Sex, Meg Hickling recounts interviewing incarcerated sexual offenders who say they avoid children who know the correct scientific names of their body parts. The rationale? “Because these children know it’s that it’s okay to discuss sex with their [parents], they are far more likely to tell their parents if someone tries to take advantage of them,” she recounts on page 32. (While Meg Hickling has now retired from school tours, she’s still writing, and her colleague Saleema Noon offers great sexual health workshops to kids of all ages). Hickling’s many years of delivering body science classes taught her that introducing accurate sex information to young kids before they hit the “gross me out” stage around age eight or nine is great – the door is open, and conversations can continue as more questions arise.
Several years ago in the drop-in, staff and members talked about the (wrong) names we’d been taught (if at all) about body parts and their functions. We all laughed, but underneath was something serious- many had the wrong information for years. We need to let go of the idea that sex education is just for adolescents (if they are lucky enough to receive it). Everyone deserves age-appropriate, accurate information about body health and sexual health. It just makes sense.
- Janet
This blog represents the ideas of individual writers, and does not necessarily reflect any formal stance taken by Positive Women's Network.
This was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Body Health, Education & Resources, HIV Prevention, News . Feel free to respond, or trackback.
One Response to “Ontario Study Supports Sex Education for All School Aged Children”
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Rosalind Colvin Says:
Hey nice post! Found this on google – glad to see someone thinking the same.
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