Contents
Who should talk to children about sex? Parents? School? How to speak on such an intimate topic? We turned to experts for comment.
The article was created specifically for the joint project PSYCHOLOGIES and the UNESCO Office in Moscow “Territory of TEENS: a guide for parents of adolescents.”
When I was five years old, I asked my mother where I came from. She replied: “I bought you at the hospital.” “And how much did you pay for me?” I asked. “Very expensive. One hundred rubles”. I asked: “How much are you worth?” “I don’t know,” Mom said. “I don’t remember, ask your grandmother.” In the summer I was sent to the village to my grandmother. And I asked her: “Grandma, how many rubles did you buy your mother for?” Grandmother laughed: “Not at all, Rodenka. I found it in cabbage. Is free”. “And mom said that you bought it at the hospital.” – “That’s right, Rodenka. It was I who later took it to the hospital and bought it. Issued for twenty rubles. And first in the garden, in the cabbage. “Only twenty rubles? Is it so cheap?..” “Yes, Rodenka, everything used to be cheaper, not like now. Everything has gone up in price.” “And where did she get into the cabbage? From the tummy, right? “What are you doing, the Lord is with you. Who taught you? What a shame. In cabbage, Rodenka, the stork carries babies. “From the space factory?” – “What kind of factory? .. They teach children the devil knows what, God forgive me. From God, my dear, from God. “Grandma, there is no God on earth,” the older boy told me in kindergarten. God was before, and now he is in space. And there are no storks either. People are made in factories, from factories they are put into tummies, from tummies into cabbage, and from cabbage into a maternity hospital. Then, when I went to school, I asked Vitka Shtyr, the commander of our yard (he was already thirteen), how much he was bought for. Vitka looked at me, screwed up his eyes and said: “I’ve been eating for a while. Where did you come from? From FES-Bae?” “No,” I replied, “I’m from the hospital. They bought me there. And they did it in a factory, in space.” “Ha ha ha! .. Vo gives. Are you stupid? Do you know how babies are made? – “How?” – “Like this: a bale, and it’s ready. Than piss, understand? – “Like this?..” – “Well. What did you think? I cried. I realized that I’m stupid. I realized that adults lie, lie, lie, and that all this is very boring. Just on this day, dad taught me that you should never lie, because any lie is necessarily exposed. Shtyr told me a lot more later. In general, everything turned out to be so simple that I even stopped getting upset. But for some reason, I still didn’t want to believe that everything is obtained from what …
V. Levy “New non-standard child”
(Toroboan, 2002).
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Surely, many readers will recognize themselves in the heroes of this story from Vladimir Levy’s wonderful book “The New Non-Standard Child”. Someone will smile, remembering their childhood and those stories about “storks and cabbage” that they happened to hear from their parents. Someone in bewilderment will ask a fair question: “What about telling a five-year-old kid about how children are “made”?” And someone, like Rodenka’s father, decides that there is no problem – he will grow up and find out. Rodenka grew up and learned. I learned that adults lie, and parents in the first place. I learned through the vulgar story of a senior comrade. And in this recognition, he, like many other teenagers, mixed truth and lies, vulgarity and romanticism, shame and desire. And then, because of these lies and understatement, at the age of 15, girls become mothers or risk never becoming mothers due to an interrupted pregnancy. Not taught to say “no” and not be considered a sissy boy out of bravado and curiosity, they can try beer and “weed”, and then the needle. More than 3,7 million people in the countries of the former USSR inject drugs*. Many of them became addicted to drugs in their youth and adolescence.
Who, if not parents?
Parents are the first educators. From the moment the child is born, everything that they do and do not do, that parents say and keep silent about, educates and educates his personality. The relationship of parents with each other, with the child and with others sets a pattern that will later be recognized in the behavior of the child. The example of parents in all matters, from how they communicate with each other and with the child, and ending with the way of life they lead, what values and beliefs they share, is of paramount importance for the child to assimilate the norms and stereotypes of thinking and behavior. It is good if the family gives a positive example. And if not?
In any case, he will look for information that he needs and is interested in – about how his body changes (secondary sexual characteristics, menstruation, wet dreams) and soul (thoughts, desires, priorities), about how relationships develop (friendly and romantic), about first love and first date, about creating a family and having children. What the parents won’t say will be told by Pin, who enlightened Rodka, or Yandex. But at the same time, there is a very big risk that what you hear from friends, read in a chat or on a random site will turn out to be not entirely true and even incorrectly harmful.
And who will give the right information, help you navigate the flow of information, teach you to critically comprehend what you read, hear and see, make independent decisions, not succumb to ubiquitous advertising, and resist coercion from peers? Who, if parents are shy, do not know, cannot or do not want, will tell about physiology, reproduction and contraception? And he will convey the idea that relationships, love and family are best built on such universal values as the equality of men and women, respect for human rights, the inadmissibility of violence and responsibility for one’s actions.
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School
These tasks are assigned to the school. She is charged with promoting and teaching healthy lifestyle skills and spiritual and moral education of students. And the latter are required to take care of maintaining and strengthening their health, striving for moral, spiritual and physical development and self-improvement.**
It is logical that, as part of teaching a healthy lifestyle, they should not only be encouraged to go in for sports, do not smoke, do not use drugs and alcohol, but also teach elementary hygiene and the culture of sexual relations in order to maintain reproductive health.
Perhaps some of today’s parents remember “Hygienic and Sexual Education” in the 8th grade and “Ethics and Psychology of Family Life” in the ninth and tenth. Here is what K. V. Agafonova, deputy head of the Main Directorate of Schools of the USSR Ministry of Education, wrote about these subjects: “… Eighth graders perceive a new subject well if gender issues are presented in close connection with hygiene knowledge. Children will learn, in particular, how important it is to protect the health of a future mother and a small child. Such classes are entrusted to conduct teachers of anatomy. For some sections of the course, doctors talk to boys and girls separately. The course “Ethics and Psychology of Family Life” is designed not only to give adolescents certain knowledge, but also to form a correct idea of the rights of the individual and his responsibility to society, of the moral foundations of the relationship between a boy and a girl.
Then came the restructuring. These, admittedly, rather boring subjects were removed from the school curriculum in Russia, and new ones were developed in their place, which were barely introduced in the mid-90s, when they were immediately canceled due to protests from parents and the church. Since then, issues related to reproductive health and the prevention of HIV infection and other socially dangerous diseases have been briefly considered only in the lessons of biology, the basics of life safety and physical education. At the same time in Ukraine since 2001 from 1st to 9th grade the obligatory subject “Fundamentals of Health” has been studied. The lessons discuss not only issues of general hygiene, the importance of playing sports, adherence to the daily routine and proper nutrition, safety on the road and in public places, but also the physical and psychosexual development of adolescents, gender and gender, friendship and love, fidelity and family creation, prevention and prevention of violence, including sexual violence, sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies, anti-discrimination and tolerance. As you can see, “pistils and stamens” do not occupy the most important place in this serious conversation about values and attitudes.
School?
Not all parents support the idea of sex education in school. This is way too serious. Not every teacher can do it. And if these lessons provoke an increased interest in sex and a desire to try?
It is good, of course, if the parents explain everything to the child in time and delicately. But, as Igor Kon writes: “Information of such an intimate nature, if it is communicated by a loved one, creates a tense emotional and erotic field in which both parents and children feel uncomfortable. Not only do parents feel uncomfortable when talking about sexual topics, but teenagers also prefer to receive this information in some other way, talking to their parents about these topics confuses and shocks them.
Parents expect from the school, first of all, knowledge, so that the child will pass the exam well and enter the university. Therefore, high school students are mainly prepared for this. There is no place for “life skills” in the dense grid of lessons and extracurricular activities. And why? So school is easier. Not every teacher is ready to talk with students about responsibility for themselves and for the one they love.
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According to the World Health Organization, life skills are the ability to adapt and practice positive behaviors that enable people to effectively solve problems and overcome the difficulties of everyday life. In particular, life skills include the interpersonal skills and abilities that help people make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, empathize, cope with life’s challenges, and lead healthy and productive lives. Life skills can be focused on personal actions or actions in relation to other people, as well as actions to change the environment in order to make it favorable and safe for health.
http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/sch_skills4health_russian.pdf
* euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/144873/e94882R.pdf#page=18
** Federal Law of December 29, 2012 No. 273-FZ “On Education in the Russian Federation”
*** KV Agafonova “What’s new at school.” Health, 1985, No. 1; http://lechebnik.info/505/9.htm
**** I. S. Kon “Psychology of adolescence” (Enlightenment, 1979).
Yes, school!
Parents are the most important educators of a child. Moral lessons are learned precisely in the family, and not so much through conversations as through the daily actions of parents. Their relationship with each other as husband and wife, men and women, becomes an example or an anti-example on which sexual (in the broadest sense of the word) education of children takes place. But sexual “enlightenment” is almost always and everywhere carried out through other channels – through peers, television, cinema, books, the Internet, social networks. But only a school can provide correct, age-appropriate knowledge on reproductive health and sexual relations.
Effective school sex education programs take into account the real needs of adolescents for information and do not seek to drown out their natural interest in sexual relations. But at the same time, along with knowledge, they form responsible attitudes and communication and decision-making skills that help adolescents delay sexual debut and, most importantly, make it safer.
The teaching of sex education in schools originated in post-war Europe. In 1955 it became a compulsory subject in all schools in Sweden. In Germany, sex education at school was introduced in 1968, and in Austria in 1970. In the same years, it began to take root in Dutch, Swiss and Finnish schools. At the same time, free consultations for adolescents on issues related to contraception and family planning began to appear. In the 1980s, sex education became widespread in France, Belgium, Great Britain, and somewhat later in Spain and Portugal. In the 1990s, it became mandatory in the Czech Republic, Greece, Denmark, and Estonia. As a result of these innovations, the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections and abortions among adolescents has been reduced.
By the mid-1990s, optional and even compulsory classes to teach children and adolescents life skills and the basics of a healthy lifestyle became widespread in some CIS countries. But in the 2000s, these subjects, having not received wide distribution, were excluded from the compulsory school curriculum. Only in Ukraine and Armenia, at school lessons within the framework of the “Basics of Health” and “Healthy Lifestyles”, are issues related to puberty, the development of sexuality, building healthy relationships based on trust, respect and gender equality, childbirth and maintaining reproductive and general health. In the Republic of Moldova, “delicate” topics are included in the compulsory curriculum, but they are studied not in the classroom, but on a special website where electronic learning modules are posted.
The experience of Finland is instructive. In the late 1990s, due to the economic downturn, spending on education and health was reduced. Sex education in schools has become optional. The consequences were immediate – the number of abortions among adolescent girls increased (by about 50%), and the incidence of sexually transmitted infections increased. In 2004, sex education became mandatory again. In a short time, the number of young people having sex at an early age has decreased, and the number of teenage pregnancies and births has decreased.
Sources: World Population 2011, UNFPA, 2011.
“Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe”, WHO, FCSP, 2010.
«Sexuality Education in Europe», IPPF European Network, 2006.
Myths and facts about sex education
When sex education programs were first introduced in Europe, many doubted their usefulness and feared the harm they could cause to children and adolescents. Disputes about their usefulness have not subsided so far around the world. Both parents and educators are often held captive by myths, unaware of the real facts about well-designed prevention programs.
MYTH. Sexuality education leads to an early onset of sexual relations.
FACT. Research conducted in many countries***** has shown that sexuality education does not promote early sexual intercourse. It can delay the onset of sexual relations and lead to a more responsible attitude towards sexual behavior.
MYTH. Sex education robs children of “innocence”.
FACT. Obtaining reliable, age-appropriate and complete information from an authoritative source is beneficial. Deprive of “innocence” and often injure the psyche of the child information received from “advanced” peers, older comrades, from the media.
Effective and comprehensive health education programs that focus on sexuality education include discussion of moral and psychological issues and help adolescents and young people:
– delay the onset of sexual relations or abstain from them;
– remain faithful to one partner;
— take a responsible approach to family planning;
– use protective equipment for the prevention of HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy. The knowledge and skills acquired in the course of studying under such programs make it easier for adolescents to communicate and understand, build healthy relationships, resolve conflicts, and contribute to their comprehensive and harmonious development.
Support from parents
For the successful teaching of mandatory preventive subjects (“Fundamentals of Health”, “Healthy Lifestyle”, etc.), and in the absence of such, when conducting appropriate extracurricular activities, support from parents is very important. To do this, the school must familiarize parents in advance with the content of the relevant subject or optional course. Look at the textbooks and manuals that your children will use, find out what issues will be discussed in the classroom. Don’t be alarmed if something seems premature or too revealing to you – children already know a lot more about “it” than you think from other sources. And it would be better if they were given the correct information at school.
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The article was created specifically for the joint project PSYCHOLOGIES and the UNESCO Office in Moscow “Territory of TEENS: a guide for parents of adolescents.”
The information and materials contained in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO. The authors are responsible for the information provided.
***** International Technical Guidelines for Sexuality Education (UNESCO, 2009).