to be uterly depressed watching The Hospital

[Fibilou]

The last episode was on sexual health in teens. The kid are just so clueless, the "safe sex" message just doesn't seem to be getting through.
"how many partners have you had this week" "4" "did you use a condom" "with two I think"

"do you wear a condom" "only if the girl asks"

There was a bloke that thought chlamydia was a "rite of passage" and didn't seem at bothered about his genital herpes when he was told it couldbe "managed".

And no judgement, no telling them to stop shagging anything that moves, completely unprotected. Perish the thought someone might tell them they're doing something stupid. All the HCPs just trottedout platitudes about it being "very common" and "not to worry about it".

I know it's only a TV programme and was only a tiny fraction of teenagers so not representative of all teens/young adults but I found the ignorance and lack of interest in their sexual health really shocking. And a bit of a damning indictment of our sex education classes

I used to be a teacher and know (there is no specialist sex ed teacher) that most teachers avoid taking it on ( I didn't, I even made a booklet for them).

I did see that 'sex education' programme (forget which chanel) which said a really high percentage of teens aviod getting STIs and teen pregnancy from having a habit of talking openly about sex with their parents.

Also a big factor which pushes teens is Porn and easy availability of it.

TakeLoving - I think you're right. Apparently the reason anti-rape campaigns along the lines of 'decent men wait to hear 'yes'' failed is simply that most people (men, women, teenagers and older) get into bed and then no-one says anything, no-one talks about anything, it's all supposed to just 'happen', and in the girl's case there's that 'romantic' idea that "I wanted to be swept away" - Nancy Friday wrote a lot about that.

I didn't even know what sex was until secondary school when fortunately my all-girls boarding school gave us a term in science in first year, again in 3rd year, and a whole year in RE in fourth year which included loads of TMI from the teacher and probably helped put us all off more than anything else! Our science teacher was fab, told us that Section 28 was bollocks, and put clips from agony columns round the room. She made sure to point out that the only reason to have sex is if you really, really want to and will be either using 2 moethods of contraception or accepting you may get pregnant. And that anyone who says 'if you loved me you'd have sex with me' is both wrong and doesn't love you.

However at the same time MrNC had one lesson on sex where the teacher confessed to being a virgin and that's all he can remember.

I've taught some safer sex workshops for adults and it's amazing what lots of people don't know, especially the younger ones because when AIDS was more of a threat more people did research. Personally I think every girl should get a vibrator for her 12th birthday as teenage boys would probably then be less appealing, but I can't see that ever becoming popular, sadly.

"We weren't really taught about self-worth and to aim higher than sleeping with boyfriends to make them like us."

I don't think you can be taught self-worth. You get that from home, from parents, from the earliest experiences you have all the way through to the teen years. There is absolutely nothing a school can do to create this or encourage this or teach this in children if they have not been nurtured at home. A foundation of self-respect and a feeling you're worth more than the opinion of some boy starts at day one of your life, not whenever you turn 11 or 12 and a teacher reads it to you from a booklet.

The best sex ed can aim for, absent that foundation, is scaring teens off unhealthy, ill-advised sexual activity.

The thing that shocked me was not that they are having sex - I was at that age too - but their attitudes to the clinic.

When I was 15 we used to go to the Brook Advisory for contraception. I held them in high reverence, and hung on every word that the doctors said to me.

These kids were just so 'whatever' about it all. They seemed to feel they were owed a free pass to have unprotected sex without consequence, and at liberty to berate anybody who told them that sadly it doesn't work like that.

The teenage girl who said 'no comment' as if she was in a pilice station when in fact it was a doctor trying to help her asking the question.

Also, if I had had an AIDS test or whatever ang got a negative result, of course I'd be relieved but from their responses you could just tell that they felt they had wiped the slate clean and could now go out and do it all over again.

notcitrus "Personally I think every girl should get a vibrator for her 12th birthday as teenage boys would probably then be less appealing, but I can't see that ever becoming popular, sadly." the mind boggles!

If I had been given a vibrator for my 12th birthday I wouldn't have known what it was.

But I understand what you mean.

Schools appear to do an OK job on sex ed, but it starts so young and happens so frequently that kids appear to get bored or cynical about it even before they are of age to try it. Or even worse it might encourage experimentation to find out what the fuss is all about! It seems to me that we should limit the number of times that teachers have to explain the same old stuff!

Yes it's useful for schools to give the basic facts, but it's for parents to keep having the regular chats with their children all through the years. Sex need not be a taboo embarrassing subject at home, but it is a private one. I have 4 kids from 10 to 17, and I tend to keep this type of chat on a one to one basis, often when driving in the car - it helps to keep it short and they don't have to make eye contact if they feel a bit shy.

Each child has a different set of priorites based not only on age but also on their development stage. Puberty comes at different times for each individual and the one-size-fits all approach at school can mean children get too much information, too early and then have it repeated too often, leading to boredom and even rejection of those key messages.

This is one area of education where I'd equip the parents with the books and website links, and if necessary training, and then encourage them to spot the key development signs and talk to their kids at the right time for them.

This seems like a much better way to get the message across loud and clear at a time when the young person is most receptive, and most importantly reemphasises parental responsibility and should encourage young people to feel more assured and self confident.

Personal, social and Health education is SO far down the list of priorities within the eduction system as it has nothing to do with results. The problem is that many children jsut aren't given guidance in this area at home.
Teachers across the subject areas will "teach" sex education to their tutor group. The quality of this will depend on the resources given to the teacher, how well the teacher delivers it and whether the teacher even bothers to fit it in to the 30 mins a week they may spend with their class.
If the resources are rubbish, the teacher embarrassed or thinks it is a waste of time, it won't have any impact at all.
Me? I strongly believe that Sex education along with other PSHE topics should be taught by trained PSHE teachers and should be "tested" as such in the form of a diploma so that schools have to give it the time of day and see it as a worth while thing.
Our children have a right to an education that prepares them for LIFE, not just exams and the next stage of academia.
We have a responsilbilty to provide this.

I think the self-worth stuff is what's missing, too. I work with teenage girls and some of their attitudes are ridiculous. It's just expected that they will sleep with their boyfriends, or the boyfriends will "find someone new." Well let them then, because they certainly aren't worth it! I've posted about this before, because it just makes me so irritated. I try to tell them that it's our responsibility as women to ditch partners that don't treat us well. If all women did this, men would straighten up, believe you me. Grrr...am all irritated again now.

My kids school does a pretty minimal sex ed program from what I can tell (we moved to Canada when the children were 8 and 7, a couple of years ago so just before they would have got sex ed in the UK) but they do do lots of stuff on friendships, respect, knowing yourself, modeling good behaviour and lots of other developmental stuff. It seems pretty good, and has the major advantage that they talk to each other about it. I can model with and teach my children about sex and relationships and have done since they were very small, but there is IMO a lot of added value to working throguh this stuff with your peers. ds got a term of work on puberty this summer, but sex didn't seem to be a very big part of it. Still teenage pregnancy rates are fairly low here, better than both the UK and Sweden, which is attributed to greater education and better prospects for young people (compared with the past when rates were much higher here).

I think there should be a much greater emphasis on healthy relationships, this can be taught from a very early age, in terms of friendships and family relationships, and will hopefully also teach young children about appropriate relationships which may help them to recognise abuse as inappropriate.

If children are given a good understanding of healthy loving relationships and what they might look like from early on, I think they might be more likely to look for this for themselves as they get older.

I also agree that Sex education should be taught by specialists, whether that is specially trained teachers within schools (not just every teacher) or external services. Too many teachers find it embarrassing, or are not well liked by the children they teach and therefore less likely to have children asking them questions that they may need to.