Sex ed - shaving legs in year 5

[Candycoco]

Have posted in education but posting here for traffic.

Dd came home from school today having had sex ed at school for the past 2 days.

I've always been very open with her and have answered questions as they've come up, so no big revelations this week.

However, she told me today that the boys were taught how to shave by male teacher, and girls were taught how to shave their legs. This just doesn't sit right with me. I know 99% of women do shave their legs and it's something I've already talked to dd about as she asked me last year about it and I told her she has to wait til end of year 6 before she starts secondary to do it.

I just feel it's a bit presumptuous and suggests all girls should. Maybe I'm being bit uptight about it but I don't like the message it sends. Is this normal to teach this as park of sex ed?

Thanks

nooka - nobody teased me for not removing my leg hair as soon as it appeared. As for obsessive dieting, etc, that is an increasing problem amongst boys. It wasn't caused by them talking too much about shaving their facial hair, any more than women dieting is caused by leg shaving. Leg shaving is no more mutilating than face shaving, imo. Both are technically unnecessary, neither is hugely harmful to the human body if done properly, and neither is irreversible.

Periods at 9 or 10, that is very rare not common.

It really isn't!

"Most girls start their periods between the ages of 10 and 15, with an average age of 12-13, according to evidence from the UK Biobank."

Also from the BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4HvMscyVfyqnGPG81Sw5Wrc/periods-all-about-them which states age 8+

DD was 10. There were 12 girls in her class. By Christmas in y6 - 4 of them had started their period. That is a third of the class. One girl was in y5.

Puberty for many of them kicked in well and truly, well before that too. Body hair and boobs were a natural development for many of the girls, in their junior school years.

Why should it all be secret and hidden away? It is a natural development. Not some shameful secret.

And it needs to be taught well before girls need to deal with it.

So, at DD's school - puberty was discussed gradually from Y3 upwards. Y5 was the talk about periods. Y6 was sex ed.

As for the shaving chat - well, I do wonder if it came up in conversation ad the the teacher was just responding to that. Sadly many parents don't offer their children help and support in such matters, or pretend it isn;t going to happen and leave it far too late.

If a boy starts trying to shave too soon, he'll most likely be teased by his mates for trying to remove bum fluff, not real hair. He'll also probably end up lacerating his acne. He'll also probably end up with an embarrassing shaving rash, which will cause all the girls to laugh at him, because a face is more visible than legs that can be hidden by tights.

^They do this in year 5? I assume you mean P5? That means your child is 10yrs and they are teaching the class about periods and tampons!!!
I'm in Scotland, they don't approach this untill p7 at 12/13 yrs. They don't go to secondary school to after p7.^

There are plenty of girls who need this information at 10, or at any rate, well before 12 or 13. 10 is by no means too early to be teaching girls what to expect. Nothing is worse that beginning with little to no understanding, especially girls whose parents let them down and cannot be asked.

My education on the matter only came when my mother noticed blood stains on my clothes, I had been making do with wads of tissue and paper towels.

The entire conversation went like this:

Mother (handing me a box of sanitary napkins) : 'I see you have started, I will keep these in the bathroom cabinet for you, if you run low and need to tell me, leave me a note on my nightstand. Also, dont leave them in the bathroom bin, your little brothers might see them. Wrap them up and put them in the kitchen bin.'

Note the attitude that I was supposed to hide all of this from my dad and brothers, to the point of not even mentioning need for sanitary napkins out loud when she asked if anyone needed something added to her shopping list!

Note the complete lack of information or advice onthe big picture, or advice on avoiding pregnancy, or tracking my cycle.

Note also, I had known not to ask for her assitance dealing with it. Due to eavesdropping on an older cousin and her friend, I knew a very little, but I would never ask that cousin outright for the whole story. We werent close. It was another 6 months before we had The Class in school. Which was not much more than watching a really old (black and white) film made by the tampax company. I did leave a note requesting tampons after that, and was told Absolutely Not!

I think I wasted any energy I had for rebellion on stealing tampons from the mothers whose children I babysat on weekends. And bracing myself against being told off for leaving the sanitary napkins in the bathroom bin! But I guess she couldnt being herself to say anything!

About a year later, I got told off for using my dad's razor. And she bought me a bra. A bra. One. Didnt take me shopping for one. Just bought it and left it on my dresser with a note I only needed to wear it on gym days.

Ten isnt too early.

I mentioned it before but "year 5" isn't very helpful for those of us not in England and Wales. In Scotland "year 5" might mean Primary 5 which is age 7 or Secondary 5 which is 16/17.

Sorry Primary 5 is age 9/10

Sometimes girls tease boys about their "bum fluff." Then the poor boy's trapped, unable either to shave it off or to keep it without someone choosing to tease him about it. He's stuck with an advert on his face that he's fair game to be laughed at. People of both sexes can be quite unpleasant to each other and I don't think girls have it any worse than boys when it comes to teenage body hair. I would far rather shave my legs than have to shave my sensitive face. Sometimes, people are nasty and try to make you feel small, which is particularly easy to do when you are stuck between childhood and adulthood. Refusing to talk about shaving, or turning shaving into some massively complex issue is not going to protect you from that.

Also good points Rabbit

rabbitstew I was referring to the people on this thread that talked about teasing/bullying related to hairy legs. Not sure why you are bringing up dieting, but again all things about appearance are much more focused on women/girls. Sure marketers are now looking to apply the same pressure on men/boys but right now it's really really not the same. No Julia Roberts underarm hair shocker equivalent.

The reference to google/videos was a response to people saying that the alternative to a teacher showing girls how to shave their legs (where a parent hadn't) was seriously damaging their legs by dry shaving in ignorance. I was simply saying that that ignorance was much more avoidable now as there are plenty of easily resources available. I don't see the internet as some sort of monster, me and my children use YouTube all the time for demonstrations of various very mundane things. We've only found dodgy stuff when frankly we've been looking for it.

I'm all for sex ed, I think it's really important to discuss things early and often, but I also think it is really important to do it right. I'm not bothered about 'parental prerogative' but I am concerned about making sure that school isn't adding to the negative messages that children receive that say that their natural bodies are not just imperfect but dirty (unhygienic) and must be corrected. So long as the message to both boys and girls is that there are options, nothing is compulsory and if you don't choose to follow the norm you are not to be teased or bullied then that's absolutely fine. I would however have doubts that it was presented like that because many many people do believe that shaving or otherwise removing bodily hair is something all women should do, and that if you don't you are somehow abhorrent, lazy etc

If a child doesn't come from a home with an involved parent, I'd be really against telling them to go look up videos. With rare exceptions if there's no adult to guide them in personal care their internet browsing is likely to be just as unsupervised. And for me, shaving legs has nothing to do with appearance or conforming, I just prefer how it feels. Its just as wrong in my opinion to try and persuade an adolescent they should keep hair they'd rather not, just because a parent wants to make some kind of personal statement on not conforming, as it is to persuade someone they should remove hair to conform

My DD had underarm hair and very visible, dark leg hair at 10. She hasn't started her periods yet (she's now about to turn 13) but she has been going through puberty for quite a long while. I don't think she is unusual and I know several of her friends had started their periods by last summer (so 10-11 year olds).

I wouldn't bat an eyelid if they were taught how to shave their legs in their health class tbh. I taught DD as she was uncomfortable with her hairiness. I tried to hold it off for as long as possible but they're her legs and armpits, not mine! Who am I to judge if my DD's body hair is an embarrassment to her or not.

"Actually, armpit hair only disperses the sweat if you have no clothing over them. Clothed, it turns into a sweat trap, increasing the likelihood of BO."
Obviously, then, the only answer is to either give in to the societal pressure to shave your armpits, or stop giving in to the societal pressure to wear clothing.

I vote we all go nude, it's so much less effort.

Teen boys get plenty of other comments aside from comments on hair.

They don't sort and grade each other using the same criteria that teen girls do amongst themselves, but they are very hierarchical all the same. And teen girls sort and grade teen boys just as teen boys sort and grade teen girls.

I recall plenty of smirking among girls I went to school with about boys whose school trousers were two or three inches above their shoes due to rapid growth, laughter about particularly spotty boys, boys with glasses, boys who weren't particularly sporty, boys who were skinny (again due to growth), boys who were tubby, boys who didn't use deodorant, boys who had cut themselves shaving, boys who blushed, boys who wore braces, boys who wore clothes to the school disco that looked as if their mothers had chosen them, boys with bad haircuts...

nooka - I brought up dieting because of your post about your children where you talked about girls thinking they are too fat: "Sure he is body conscious, who isn't as a teen, but there is a hell of a lot less pressure on him to conform to some externally set ideal. I've never caught him crying because he is too fat/thin/not dressed right..." My point is that he may not talk to you endlessly about his body image in the way your dd does, but choosing not to share his every hang up with you is not the same thing as not thinking about it.

Adolescents judge each other harshly. If, by the time they are adults, women get most of the comments about appearance, these are mostly, in my experience, directed at them by other women. This isn't surprising, because women and girls do go on and on ad nauseam about their appearance, whether to claim they love their body hair, or to claim they hate it. If someone laughs at a man's bald head, or chest hair, or beer belly, or nasal hair, or hairy ears, or skinny, pale legs, or Bermuda shorts, or small penis, or sunburn, or mono brow, or hideous Tony Blair smile, the man is just expected to suck it up, it is passed by without deep analysis. Women will pass comment on men without even realising what they are doing, because men don't rise as much to that particular bait, despite being victim to it. There is less pressure on men largely because it's easier to upset men by other means, and all the nasty public comments are about making people feel small and sad. Women don't have to get as upset as they do about public bitching, they just do. And because they do, it remains a popular topic of conversation.

Men are victim to their external qualities. If you're a bit short, have a strong accent, or a speech impediment, or a problem with sweat, you'll find newspapers passing comment on whether they think you are an appropriate Prime Ministerial candidate, or whether you'll be laughed at on the World stage. They would certainly pass comment if you turned up in public in a bright pink suit.

Just thought, who had armpit hair at 10? None of girls i know do, my girl is 9, the girls in her class are still playing make believe and superheroes, they are still so young, not teens this is complete rubbish, girls are entering the pre-pubertal hormonal state about two years earlier than they used to do, although the age of menstruation is roughly the same, so it's completely typical (as in you don't need to see a doctor) for 9 year olds to have a bit of hair growth, even I did aged 10 back in the 1970's! Both my children do, my 11 year old has hair like an adult female. The classification of 'early puberty' has had to be pushed back to about aged 6 because there were so many girls turning up aged 8/9/10 with hair/breast growth that it is no longer considered abnormal or worthy of investigation.

rabbitstew I think you are right about men being teased about hair. I always wince when I read things like 'omg, this guy I dated had a hairy back, ewww' and laughing at men who are very hirsute is extremely common amongst women. I always feel very sorry for the guy with the dark back hair, it's hardly like he chose it. I also admire a man who can go all natural with that hair, because many women do comment on this.

DD has armpit hair now, she's 10 and is apparently hurtling towards puberty at an alarming rate.
She has a little drawer with essentials in (towels & tampons) and we've discussed whether she wants to remove the hair. So far it's not bothering her and she wants to leave it alone. She knows I shave and has watched me do it.
As for Teenage DS, he is currently sporting his bum fluff with pride...

Oh, and she also still plays make believe

Starbrite

So what if having periods at 9/10 was rare? It isn't, but if it was would that mean it was fine to throw the girls who do start their periods at that age under the bus and leave them in ignorance what was happening? Not in my book. Telling nine year olds about periods in advance doesn't break them or ruin them. But it must be pretty terrifying to have periods without l knowing what is happening, don't you think?

But apparently you're fine with that happening.

I want to be really, really clear here. I found your posts absolutely sickening.

Give your head a wobble. It isn't disgusting or sexualising to know about periods.

my 4 yo DD knows all about periods already...coz I have them. She sees me using the loo and changing tampons, mooncup etc.

I like to think if I had had a son he would have been just as clued up by this age.

I refuse to see menstruation as something disgusting to be hidden away from children of either sex.

I ended up explaining about them to a five-year-old boy, in a public toilet, Ice.

The five-year-old was my son, I must hastily add!

I think it's pretty difficult to discuss arm pit hair without at least acknowledging that many women remove both underarm and leg hair.

Shaving (whether for boys or girls) is something parents should teach, not schools.

That's great, IF you have parents who bother to tell you anything. I startedt periods not knowing a thing. My experience wasn't as extreme as Momagain's, but I certainly could have done with a sex ed talk a few years earlier than we got one. Same with shaving; I'm blonde and had never really noticed my body hair before, but when I hit puberty it got a hell of a lot thicker. So I cut myself to ribbons trying to remove it.

I had armpit hair and masses of leg hair in year 3 of junior school (Y5 in modern education?). I was bullied and teased constantly. within a few months I was shaving regularly .