While reading through Chapter 16 the section on Learning
About Sex caught my eye. I found it interesting because personally my parents
never talked to me about sex. I think it was around the sixth grade or so that
the boys and girls had separate talks about sex with our health teachers. For
the girls, our health sex lightly briefed on the topic not saying too much
about it just going over what it was and we also had the period talk. Besides
that I never really had any other peers, teachers, or adults talk about the
subject. What I knew at that age is the stuff that my friends were talking
about. In the book, it talks about how most parents wait too long to talk about
sex. This was shown in a study where children and parents were asked about
hanging out and kissing parents. Only 5% percent of the parents said they knew,
compared to 38% of the girls actually doing that. From that you can see the
large difference from what the parents know to what the children actually do.
In my opinion, I think this definitely leads to unplanned teen pregnancies
because children might not be probably informed because parents do not talk
about it. I think having parents that talk about sex with their children can
lead to their children being safer when they are sexually active.
Hi Kristi. I agree with you completely. I definitely think that parents need to be more engaged when it comes to talking to their kids about sex. I do remember the first time I got "the talk." My mom told me in the kitchen when I was in fifth grade. At the time, I didn't really want to talk about it because I just found it to be an awkward subject as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI don't really remember talking about sex much in school. The boys and girls in my seventh grade class were divided into separate health classes...but I remember talking more about nutrition, periods, and emotional health than sex. Part of this may be because I went to Catholic school. Once I got to high school we were required to memorize the parts of the reproductive organs but talked nothing about birth control (using it is against the Catholic Church).
I was glad my parents sent me to Catholic school. But., I do think it shielded me from the real world a bit. I agree that parents should openly talk with their children about sex. I think it would lower the rate of teen pregnancy and make it less of a taboo subject.