An important role of sex education for young children

A child forms their ideas about the world from what they learn at school, from their friends, and at home. I’m frequently asked, “How should I talk about sex to my little ones and when should I start? And how should that communication evolve as they grow up?”

Avoiding these discussions, reprimanding a child for being curious, or worse, providing misinformation, induces fear and shame and may set the child up for a lifetime of misunderstanding about sexuality and relationships.

1. Sex education helps to form healthy connections

It's taken us a while to understand that human health is an interconnected system. In the same way that we teach children physical and emotional health, sexual and relational health must be taught as an integral part of that. It isn't a second track. Our knowledge and practice of respect, responsibility, mutuality, pleasure, contraception, and consent determines the quality and consequences of the physical and emotional experience of sex. Comprehensive sexuality and relationship education teaches that it isn’t a matter of just “having” sex but that we are sexual beings. It emphasizes the importance of human connection, how to respond to our attractions and our desires and what to do with the attention from others. Teaching children sexual self-awareness helps with the creation of boundaries. When you make it about connection, you’re giving it a meaning. Sex takes place in a context. And integration allows pleasure to flourish in that context of relatedness.

2. Sex Education Helps Us Have A Healthier Relationship With Our Bodies.

Children should be raised with a clear understanding of their bodies, how bodies work, how to take care of them, and how all bodies are unique and special and must be treated well. Why is it that we name every body part by its actual name except our genitals? Have you ever heard a nickname for knees? Or armpits? Similarly to how we spend countless nights and mornings teaching our children how to brush their teeth and hair, and why good oral health is paramount, we must also teach children how to clean their genitals, what they’re for, how they will change over time, and how to protect them. These conversations go a long way in helping a child become self-reliant in regards to health and hygiene, and help establish self-esteem. Your body is normal and beautiful and functional. It is yours and only yours. It works like this and will change like that. This is how to take care of it.

3. It Normalizes Sex And Relationships And Demystifies Them.

Talking to children about sexuality early on establishes it as a normal topic, and avoids awkward and fraught interventions that inevitably occur too late. Secrecy surrounding sex breeds fear and shame, whereas appropriate openness encourages children to ask questions. It is infinitely preferable to have them ask you for answers than try to figure it out on their own only to stumble upon misinformation. And if you lead the conversation, then you can steer it in the direction of two of the most important aspects of sexual and relationship health….

4. Sex education help to prevent sexual abuse

Sex education can help the young population to be aware of their sexual rights. It enables them to recognize potential acts of violence, sexual abuse, and molestation. And prevent it from happening to themselves, or open to conversations that can help them.

Being a teenager is a challenging time. Young minds are susceptible to grave dangers. Peer pressure might even lead to participation in criminal group behaviour. And its prevention is possible by educating adolescents about sex and consent.