Teaching kids sex education at age 5

didn't catch the start of the article on the Wright Stuff mindless channel 5 trash this morning, but this was the topic title when i tuned in.

there were various arguments for and against. (actually most that were for were only if the child asked about it).

the best bit was some irrate caller who said "i couldn't even spell my name when i was that age!"

i was shocked and disgusted that people would entertain the notion of teaching kids as young as 5 about sex. ffs i hadn't even been introduced to beer at that stage nevermind sex.

discuss.

I could never understand why that particular sub-topic of the biological sciences has always been delayed until kids are a certain age anyway.

I don't see the problem either.

you dont see the problem in teaching kids aged 5yrs old about sex???

Well, you do realise it's a biological function don't you? Half the reason why people are think it's taboo is because we aren't told about it at such a young age

My daughter, age 5, me hausmann, my wife at work. For weeks, nay, years, my daughter has been interested in all things having to do with animals. Guileless me, I explain in terms of taxonomy, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and mammals, etc. Well, of course, one of the distinguishing characteristics of a mammal is that they carry their young inside the womb, and the offspring is born live, not as an egg that is then fertilized, etc. Well, suffice it to say, at about 7 pm one evening, my wife is working late, and I am at home alone with my daughter when she throws me a zinger that I cannot dodge without lying. Not, "Where do babies come from," but "If mammal mothers carry their offspring inside of them, and if their eggs must be fertilized by the father, how does the father's sperm get inside the mother?"

Put like that, I had two choices: A bald faced lie, or the straight, mechanical truth of the matter. And remember, this is a father, alone with his daughter, who is five.

I opted for the truth, because a) she was smart enough to phrase the question in a way that made it impossible for me to dodge, and b) if I lie to her at this point, and she finds out about it later (which she will), why would she trust me for anything else I might have to say about the matter? Personally, I'm thinking I'd rather she trust me when 14 rolls around. Because that's when the subject gets really sticky.

Plus, it helps that she knows the consequences of that act before she even entertains the notion of getting stuck into it. Personally, I think most parents wait far too long. Children learn, whether you want to approach the subject or not. Would you rather they got the straight scoop from you, or learned about it from their equally clueless classmates? Well-informed is well-prepared.

Children tell you when they're ready to know. It's a matter of listening...and not being afraid to tell the truth. And no, five is not too early, as I only too uncomfortably found out in my own journey as a father.

and because its against the law till 16 in most places.

What does that have to do with learning about a biogical function?

BTW: response was a serious "yuck" face, at which point I asked if she thought that was kind of gross. She nodded very much to the affirmative, at which point I said that it was fine with me if she felt that way for some time to come.

EDIT: Timmeh, good point. Learning about it isn't illegal. And many, many of my friends lost their virginity by 14--too early to talk about it, according to some parents. Where would you put the line, Schotte?

To be taught sex education? (That is what your thread is about).

Your logic seems to be that if younger kids are taught about sex, then they will go off and do it. Thats bollox mate.

nothing i just said that is the reason why it is taboo.

same as when i tried my first buckfast at 13, i knew the risks!

???

Does that mean kids should only be taught about the dangers of smoking once they reach 16? Or that kids should only be about the dangers of alcohol once they reach 18?

this is getting out of hand. i should clarify, unless i was mistaken, the basis behind this programme was about teachers teaching kids, not parents. well, that was the reason for the topic.

sorry, i should have clarified that at the start of this thread.

yes of course, it would be madness not to be truthful if YOUR kid asked about it, but i wouldnt be keen on a teacher telling my bairn how to add and subtract and then what a condom is for in the same day...

Why not? What is the problem of teachers informing kids during, say, a biology class? Seems perfectly acceptable to me. Is 5 too young? Possibly, but I can also imagine the education being in a VERY vague form so as not to upset the kids or parents

i dont see the harm in that either. Thats what a school is supposed to be- for all knowledge.
Alot of parents cannot handle sharing sex education with their children and most children are shy about it.
So i think its no harm where they learn it from.

alot of schools have religion thought as a subject so why not sex?

Just to share a little incidence
one of the kids i used to babysit for (6years old) came crying home because he fought with a girl in the bus. He called her stupid or something like that and she backanswered him by saying "I will suck your cork if u talk to much!!" And the whole bus laughed. He sat in his room cryin all day when he got back.

Man if this is the conversation 6 year olds can have. Its time sex education should be thought more than just at home and school!

Some parents dont even teach their kids the basic primary numbers, or even how to count to 10 before they start school at 5, so you can imagine teaching their kids about where babies come from is WAY down in the list. I would say thats the same for most parents anyway. So the kid learning at school is a good way of prompting parents to cover these taboo subjects at home.

A Little Johnny joke thats quite appropriate for this thread -

@PG
THats sound s like some might fine parenting there !! I like you're don't lie to em approach.

@schotte

I have a better idea - why not encourage them to have faith in Jebus and maintain their purity until they are within the sanctitiy of marriage? THen they won't need to know until their wedding night and all wil be perfect. Bless.

What about that religious German couple who went for fertility treatment only for th edoctors to discover they didn't know about sex !!

Will you then get upset when your child gets pregnant as a teenager, and will you then blame it on a shoddy educational system?

In America, there are many children who will not get this education at home. Full stop. Dunno how it works in the UK. I do think, however, that most primary and secondary education fails precisely because it assumes less sophistication on the part of the students than they actually have. I can, with real certainty, say that everything I fault my own educational experience for stems from precisely this trend.

They were still trotting out the Silas Marner, and I was reading the Beats and the doings of the Merry Pranksters, and romanticizing all manner of shit I probably would have been better off not romanticizing. Had they managed to get past their obstacles regarding conventional morality, and actually engage some real trends in literature with me, I'm sure the experience would have been much more enriching.

No Othello or Hamlet...always stuck with MacBeth, R&J, Julius Caesar and Merchant of Venice. Those aren't the heady waters of that particular writer, and if they'd gotten really stuck into the guy's work, I would have been game, and very engaged. Instead, I spent a good 7 years in absolute rejection of the worth or relevance of the wares they were flogging...which were all about life's purpose being to be like everyone else. Bollocks. In most cases, the kids are smarter than you think. That should be engaged, but instead, as always, the process has to be politicized.

Sex education is one thing, but details such as what gonorrhea is are a little OTT for kids.

I'm all for it, especially when coupled with sexual abuse awareness. If someone had told me when I was 5 what grown-up guys should be using their cocks for (i.e. making babies with grown-up women) I probably wouldn't have been abused when I was 6.

There is that, too. To properly approach that subject, and to arm your kids effectively, one does have to go a little further than the "candy from strangers" euphemism.

good point...'don't go with strangers' is shite advice too as many abused children know/are related to/have been groomed by their abusers.

No it wasnt and still isnt. Crime stats showed that the number of child abductions/abuse by strangers fell year after year(At least in the UK). Its just that now the abuse stats show family members & friends are more likely to be responsible and now we need to change that message.

One-time abuse is generally a stranger, multiple almost always someone connected to the family. The more a kid knows about the do's and don't's, the better it will be protected.

its not crap, but you can be over protective and paranoid about it. most rapes are in commited by family/friends too, should we get rid of those sexist "nür für frauen" parking spaces?

Is that the reason behind the "nur für Frauen" spots? To minimize the danger of being assaulted by a stranger?

Oh, and tell your kids the truth and tell them as early as you can reasonably. More info can only help them make informed decisions.

There was an article about this not too long ago in the New York Times, as well, but it was just about parents teaching their kids, not teachers, which I think would just NOT fly in the US right now.

One expert (child psychologist? pediatrician?) in the NYT article said the concern is that parents answer these kinds of questions with more information than the child wanted or needed to know.

Following that line of thought, I think it's really not such a bad idea to have teachers, who should be experts on children, do some kind of basic sex ed with age-appropriate materials. Maybe even one or two hours every year, with more and more information and sophistication built into the series.

You might have to forewarn the parents and allow them to opt their kid out of the class at that time, though. Some parents would just not be comfortable with it.

I really don't get the concept of lying to your kids, won't that totally undermine your authority? I've often wondered what happens when your children find out there is no Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy or baby delivering Stork. Don't they hold it against you?

I don't get it, either. And I don't quite get what people expect teachers to do when a good portion of their reactions are decidedly not based on any on-the-ground reality a teacher actually faces.

Most children pick up on a helluva lot more than parents are willing to admit. And most of the time, they know full well when you're lying to them.

Reminds me of the best advice I got, as a youngster, when it came to drugs, and the one that stood me in the best stead throughout my teenage years. Not "just say no," but a simple word of advice from a friend's father, who happened to be an ex-hippie, and told me, "Never take a drug you don't understand." That, my friends, was solid, solid advice, and it kept me from taking a lot of shit that was quite available to me...just because I knew enough to check into what the hell the drug actually did to the human body.

Mind you, I'm a career smoker. But then, that's not illegal, is it?

By the time I was 8, all I had to figure out was how the hell you kept that floppy thing inside the girl long enough to move it around. That all changed one morning when I woke up having to pee really badly. And all my information came from other children...usually older, but essentially as clueless as I was, and most of whom told me about it for rather unpure motives. Kids learn this shit anyway. Better they're given information than disinformation.

Most of my education came from a french movie involving a guy and two girls, something told me though that I shouldnt do what the guy did in the girls face on my first time round!!

I'd hate to be the conservative bogey-man here for a change , but there is a slight difference between a five and fourteen year-old as far as bio-sexual (does that word exist?) development is concerned, oder?

Anyway, what are they actually trying to teach these five year-olds? Anyone have any idea what the content is like?

I think we need much more of a practical component in sex education though. Too much emphasis on the theory. It really is a practical subject and im sure the kids would benefit a lot from engaging in hands-on experiments. Like most of the sciences, all the theory in the world cant prepare you for when you go to uni or the workplace and actually have to put the lessons into practice. And it should be tested on as part of your grade, girls especially. I am sick and tired of having to take on the schools role in training them up.

I mean puh-leaze...

What do you want? Five year-olds doing hands-on workshops with Professors Siffredi and Jeremy?

I'd argue that the message 'don't go with strangers' alone is insufficient for children.

my abuse was not carried out by a stranger. I didn't realise it was wrong until sex ed at school...then I realised what was going on was wrong.

No, thats sick, but 15 year old volunteers, or perhaps the teacher and teacher assistant, doing a demonstration on the teachers desk could really help bring science alive for the rest of the class.

I've never not known (pardon the double negative) what the multiple purposes of my anatomy were. I didn't think it was a big deal or ew gross or anything it was just fact. I also knew what my parents were doing when the door was closed and I wasn't to interrupt. I don't think this knowledge did anything to corrupt me, in fact I'm one of very few people I know who has always felt totally comfortable discussing sex with my parents.

The issues arose only when other children were misinformed and I ended up fighting with them over what my mommy said vs. what their mommy said.

@JW: I guess I'm of the opinion that a bit more openness about what sex actually entails, in terms of both physical and emotional consequences, might find fewer 14 year olds having unprotected sex. And just how many of those encounters do you think involved a quick trip to the drug store for some condoms?


Fair point, and I wouldn't mind knowing myself, but if my experience thus far proves any measure, even if the exact curriculum were posted here, it'd do nothing to make the controversy any less. Half the forum would be shocked at the explicitness, the other half would be shocked because anyone could be shocked at such information being given 5 year olds. Suffice to say, in the instance mentioned above, I countered a very well formulated mechanical question with an answer that was mechanical to the last detail. If my girl gets preggers in the teen years, she won't be able to say it was because she didn't know that might happen. And yes, by the time she's menstruating, I will insist on her knowing about ways to protect herself. Exploration's natural, and happens earlier than most parents want to admit.

So much of this can be chalked up to a sense of morality that is based on shame of the body--and although I'm as modest as the next guy (okay, maybe a little less modest than some), I'm still amazed at what people find to be ashamed of. We're humans. Our bodies are odd, infinitely intriguing things. Throw in a cauldron of raging hormones and they're even more so. Kids should be well prepared to weather that particular storm, and it doesn't happen in one setting. In fact, what you say probably has a helluva lot less to do with their real approach to the question than what you do...every day...sometimes without even knowing you do it. In that respect, sex education can't start early enough.

And yeah, ideally, this part of a child's education happens at home. Trouble is, there are a lot of parents out there that are just too--to put as polite a spin as one can on the matter--shy to actually approach the question with their sprogs. Fix that, and there's no reason at all for kids to be taught this stuff in school.

BTW, has anybody had a child present at the birth of one of their siblings and if so how did they take it?

@SIM: No, cuz I've only one child. But, in prep for it, I did see an awesome video in which a 5 year old was brought in to see her mother in labor--the mother was still walking around at that point. The little girl just stood there looking for about half a minute, then started tilting her head until she'd gone about as upside down as she could, trying to get a better look at the baby coming out. Brill. Laughed my ass off.

mmm didnt do that but wouldnt the sight of a screaming groaning woman scare the shit out of them?

I would think so.

Well, I have a 4 year old son and the next one due next week. Plan is to have the baby at home so he will be there as well. I hope he isn't frightened by the whole experience.
He has already been practising the screaming with her...

Edited after PG pointed out my mistake...

I can just see those alphabet strips above the blackboard in the primary school classroom of tomorrow:

A is for Anal Sex
B is for Blowjob
C is for Cunnilingus...

...hmm...gonna do anything in particular to make sure he is? I'm sure the lot that hangs around on this forum could come up with some choice strategies to help you in that respect.

Arrgh...I hope he isn't frightened by the whole thing...mistyped that!!!

Ah. I'm rather relieved at the typo. Was starting to get concerned for you, man.

Uhm, SIM , I think a five year old might not be emotionally ready to see what his mother will be going though - heck, most grown men have a hard time dealing with it (not to mention a few women). I think it is good that he knows how and all that, but the actual experience might really be a bit much for him to deal with - even if he acts otherwise.
After all, as the little man of the house, he will be totally utterly helpless to help her. And then wonder if he did the same to her perhaps ? I was able to atleast not let my kids think they caused my that much physical pain, but they didn't see it.

I think it's a good idea, I've never witnessed a birth and the idea scares me to no end. Maybe if I had witnessed it I'd be more comfortable with it.

Then again what do I know I don't have kids.

did anybody else read that as fuckfest?

DD: is that the whole truth of the matter? Would he be totally helpless, in this respect? Is papa any more helpful? And is pain all he's gonna see?

Personally, if I had another kid, I'd want my first kid present. She'd have a choice in the matter, but I'd invite and encourage her to attend--and be open to her excusing herself anytime the going got a bit too rough for her to handle.

My guess is, though, that she'd want to be right there, anyway.

It's all part of life.