picture source:- reuters
Teaching children the facts of sex and sexual development needs to be
done with care, sensitivity and in a holistic manner. Coping with
changes in sexual development is an issue every child must face, and the
challenge is even more critical for children during their early
formative years. Educators and parents must therefore regard sexuality
as part of human drives and needs that must be correctly channelled.
The necessity for giving correct information about sexual development to
children is of paramount importance. Children nowadays are exposed to
knowledge about sex through the mass media (often with gory details),
books, through the Internet and also from their peers, and if they are
not taught to differentiate between what is appropriate and what is not,
they might end up exhibiting inappropriate behaviour. No parents will
ever want their children to obtain information on sexual development
from the gutter.
Parents can impart knowledge of sex to their children but such
information needs to be tailored to the child’s level of understanding —
in this case, the mental age, which may not correspond to the child’s
chronological age. Children are very innocent and can easily be victims
of sexual abuse in the hands of unscrupulous adults. The child may not
even realize that he is being used as an object to gratify the deviant
sexual needs of adults.
One important area is the need to inform children as to what constitutes
‘appropriate and inappropriate touching’. The importance of giving such
awareness to children is stressed on parents. The child needs to know
who is allowed to touch him or her and when, and where; what a doctor
can touch, situations the child should avoid, and how best to stop
inappropriate conduct in the classroom.
Parents themselves need to be aware that inappropriate touching could
also happen between relatives. For instance, parents usually tell their
children to ‘beware of strangers’, yet studies have shown that in child
sexual abuse cases, the majority of abusers are in fact known to the
child, or are members of the child’s own family.
As with other children in society, children require open lines of
communication with their parents. This would include openness in
discussing issues connected with sex. If any untoward physical contact
has occurred they should be comfortable in telling their parents about
it, instead of being too ashamed or too afraid to reveal details.
Sex education is important because one cannot expect teenagers to follow
rules blindly without knowing why they must follow them. One of the
subjects they should be educated about is why they should abstain from
sex until after marriage.Many people oppose sex education for children
because they think that ‘once you tell them about it, they will go out
and abuse it.’ It is significant to note that in Switzerland, sex
education is taught in kindergartens and that country has the lowest
number of teenage pregnancies in the world. What is vitally important is
that children be taught responsible sexual behaviour from the time they
are ready for such instruction. A sound sexual education will save the
child untold stress from guilt, fear, remorse and retribution in the
future.
Source:- awakening path
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