Pre-school sex ed

Filed under: Preschoolers, Your Pregnancy, Day Care & Education, Sex

At four years old, my daughter knows what a penis is and (more or less) that it's something that boys have. After all, she has two brothers and a dad, so it's not like she hasn't seen one before. According to the Brook Advisory Centres and the Family Planning Association, two British non-profits that focus on sexual health and education, she's off to a good start.

The two organizations are calling for mandatory Sex and Relationships Education, beginning as young as four years old. Brook's CEO, Simon Blake, said that "If we get high quality sex and relationships education in every primary and secondary school across the UK, all the evidence shows teenage pregnancy rates will continue to fall and will improve young people's sexual health."

"Young people will find information and if we don't give it to them in a responsible way, they'll find it from elsewhere," notes Julie Bentley, CEO of the FPA. "Pornography is a good example... what it does is it distorts their understanding about sex." The organizations want to make sure that kids get adequate and accurate information about both the emotional and practical aspects of sex, in part to help stop the rising numbers of cases of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage abortions.

Naturally, there are parents who don't like the idea. "I wouldn't be discussing it with my children at that age so I wouldn't want the school to be doing it," says one mother of a six-year-old and a one-year-old. I don't know -- I know my daughter is aware that boys are different from girls and I certainly don't want her to grow up believing myths such as "you can't get pregnant the first time." I want her to have good information and if the schools can work with experts to develop an age-appropriate curriculum, that seems like a good idea to me.

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AdviceMama Says:
Start by teaching him that it is safe to do so.