Parents lose right of withdrawal of their children from Sex and Relationship Education once they reach 15.

[Thandeka]

Please discuss your reactions to this news as I would be very interested to read them.

Personally I think this is a great thing but then I am biased as I work in young people's sexual health.

P.S "Parental opt out" is a much better word sorry as "withdrawal isn't necessarily a good word to use in relation to sex ed- hehe!

And that is what worries me teachers with their own embarrasment, hang ups and agenda's.

PS SGB what are the yank father daughter things? They sound ghastly. Link please!!

PPS MMM I didn't mean that my DH had hang ups or agendas. He was a bit embarrassed, but generally quite stable and nice.

I wouldn't remove my children from sex education, but I do worry about what the moral undertones of it are. There have been quite a few people on here going on about how terrible teenage pregnancy is.

I don't think there is anything wrong with teenage pregnancy and I would not be concerned if DD got pregnant as a teenager. I would not be happy if schools were presenting teenage pregnancy as a negative choice; they should try to be neutral but honest about what being a parent involves.

I hope that schools now promote a positive view of sex; when I was at school it was all about diseases you could catch.

Generally IS quite stable and nice, I mean, and was a bit embarrassed by teaching a subject he had no preparation or training for. Which I think is fair enough. I'm basically saying that it's not that nice of you to accuse him of having hang-ups or agendas.

Not sure what is going on with my grammar here.

juuule Fri 06-Nov-09 20:29:12
"Running, geography, ww2, fossils and the like are not usually something that people consider to be a part of their private life, though, so I do think that that sex and relationships are a different matter."

My evangelical friends definitely consider anything to do with the creation of the world to be part of their private life = relationship with God, so they feel very strongly about the fossils. Still hasn't made them withdraw their children from biology lessons.

I would LOVE my children to be coming back every night to the beds they are asleep in now when they are 18. The thought of them being 200 miles away from me breaks my heart. But the important thing here is that I know that I mustn't under any circumstances let them know that's how I feel. If they want to go to St Andrews or Sydney or Kuala Lumpur, then my job is to wave them off with a smile. We have an excellent university 15 miles from our front door. I would think it a wasted opportunity if wither of my children went to it.

Starkadder, your dh's experience is quite unusual & outdated.

10 years ago PSHCE was routinely the responsibility of form tutors at my school - I've taught it quite competently, I think, but these days it's more usually under the RE 'umbrella' - called something like 'Integrated Studies' or 'Ethics'.

Agree with earlier posters that the 'mechanics' are taught as part of Science, so if you'd prefer your dc not to know what goes where & the potential consequences, withdrawing them from Sex Ed will not keep them adequately ignorant.

What depresses me is the presumption by some posters that teachers are routinely foisting their stereotypically libertine ideas on delicate innocents. No. It just doesn't work like that.

For a start, we are professionals. Keeping one's personal opinion separate from one's teaching is not a skill any teacher is unfamiliar with. If someone told me 'my mum thinks that...' I wouldn't dream of telling them their mum was 'wrong'.

If asked what I thought, I'd be honest, never prescriptive. ('Well, I think...., but what's more important is what you think')

& where sexual 'permissiveness' is concerned - & it seems to be the main area that parents get panicky, sorry, concerned, about - honestly, you'll find very few teachers gaily advocating unfettered & feckless teenage shagging. If nothing else, it plays merry hell with those vital GCSE results...

well said Raven, teachers are professionals and I feel quite angry at some of the things I've read by columnists suggesting that they will somehow screw up innocent minds through their teaching.

Starkadder is right in her concerns though - there are many many many teachers being required to teach PSHE education without sufficient training, and feeling uncomfortable about certain areas (not because of any hang ups necessarily, but because of the sheer sensitivity). That's why there must be some very good initial teacher training going along with this - badly taught PSHE ed could be worse than no PSHE at all.

'What depresses me is the presumption by some posters that teachers are routinely foisting their stereotypically libertine ideas on delicate innocents. No. It just doesn't work like that.

Some people have very low opinions of teachers. It can be badly taught but I don't think you can just make that assumption-it can also be brilliantly taught. Maths/English/Art etc can be badly taught-no one says 'then don't teach them'. They get on the phone (or at least I would)and complain.

I am reading an autobiography, at the moment, of a well known figure who grew up in the '60s. She was a clever girl who has done well, and is a sane, well balanced member of the community. It made me think of this thread. She had a strict mother who had very fixed ideas on dress and acceptable venues for a 14/15yr old and who thought boys were a 'danger'. She gets around it by keeping her going out clothes and make up at a friend's house, setting off to a venue approved by her mother, meeting her friends at a disco, getting changed and putting on make up in the loos, at 9.40pm she gets changed back, washes her face, hides her bag of clothes for the friend to pick up later and gets the 10pm bus. She arrives home in 'mother approved' clothes and alice band to talk about her 'official' evening. It was easier in those days, without phones, but it goes on all the time! DCs will find a way around a strict parent if they want to.
She also recounts the more worldly wise girls imparting their knowledge behind the bike sheds and them passing around 'Lady Chatterly's Lover' in a brown paper cover under the guise of a text book. This was an all girl's grammar school. I had a very sheltered upbringing, and was a late developer, but that type of thing certainly went on. It goes on today-it will always go on.
Having some sensible sex instruction in school seems sensible-it isn't as a replacement for the parent-it is just in addition.
My mother gave birth to me, I love her to bits and am dreading finally having to live without her but she doesn't own me body and soul! I don't have to agree with her-we have opposing views on many things-it doesn't hurt our relationship. I would have been very cross if she had withdrawn me from a lesson that the rest of the class were having because of her hangups about the state v parents. Luckily I am confident she wouldn't have done it.

Just read your comments piscesmoon, RE not losing your virginity in Uni/College. I'm glad it wasn't just me. I didn't meet the right person either I didn't have sex because I didn't love or like anyone enough to want do it, though I did have a couple of boyfriends while I was there.

I knew what sex was from such an early age that I can't really remember ever not knowing. Didn't get any formal school education as far as I remember but I was lucky, I think, that my parents were pretty open. For some reason it was important to me that I feel loved and that I could trust the person I had/have sex with. I wonder if my parents taught me this but I really don't know.

I think there were lots of us DuelingFanjo. I knew all about it, and there were certainly girls at school who were sexually active under age. I did what was right for me and what I was comfortable with, nothing to do with parents or sex education -except possibly that I got the message at home that you didn't need to follow the crowd. My mother's message was very clear -no sex before marriage, but it wasn't one I agree with.
MillyMollyMoo seems to think all students are sleeping around and drunk! They are only like any other section of the public-there are all sorts. My eldest DS didn't drink much as a student, he joined the mountaineering club and mountain marathons and drink don't really mix as you have to be super fit!
University gives you access to all sorts of activities and experiences and life long friendships. It is about far more than the study.
I don't think that DS3 would have chosen to go so far from home, but it was the right place for him, I could see that as soon as I visited.
They have to learn by their own mistakes. The cotton wool approach is very bad in the long term. I know that DS1 was shocked when in his 3rd year in university he had to work in a group of 4. They discovered that one of the group travelled in daily from home, about 15 miles away, he went to lectures and went home, he had never even set foot in the student bar. I dare say that his parents were happy that he was 'safe in his own bed' but I don't think it was a good life for a 21yr old.
If they get drunk and 'bonk random people' (to quote)hopefully they learn by it and get it out of their system. It is much better than having a midlife crisis. I know someone my age with very strict parents, she married young to get away and then at 35yrs realised she had missed out when young and went off with a 19yr old! It destroyed a marriage and upset the DCs.

Piscesmoon - maybe his parents weren't happy about it but perhaps it was his choice and they supported him in it. I know university students who have opted to stay at home to avoid bigger loans than they already have. Their parents would prefer them to move out but would also prefer their dc to not to have unecessary debts. I also know of students who prefer to be at home.

I dare say it was his choice to stay at home juuule, I really have no idea, but I do know that he wasn't happy with his social isolation.
My DS2's girlfriend is living at home at the local university-it is her choice.

1. it is near my DS,
2. it saves masses of money
3. she is very outgoing and will make friends anywhere
4. she already has a very active social life.
5. Her parents treat her like an adult, she has her own car and comes and goes when she wants and is not told what to think.

It really doesn't matter as long as the DC has made the choice.

You seem to be nitpicking small points juuule. I only have one-that the parents do not have 'rights' to be the only people allowed to give information to DCs. All DCs are free spirits, it isn't in the parent's gift to control what the DC thinks and there is no earthly reason why a DC should think the same as a parent! It doesn't alter the relationship-you don't have to think alike to love or live with someone.
The DC will make up their own mind, and it is much healthier to have a range of opinions from an early age, they get used to contrasting and comparing and being discriminative. IMO the DC who is likely to become involved in cults etc is the one who has been kept on the narrow line of 'mummy thinks' and no one is allowed to point out alternatives.
Even within the same family DCs will have different views. Just taking 2 friends at random:
Friend 1. DD took herself off to the doctor aged 16yrs and got the pill. She wouldn't have any interference-'my body-my life'. DS, 5 yrs older didn't sleep with his girlfriend because he thought it important to wait for marriage. Friend somewhere between the two.
Friend 2. A Christmas, Easter, Christmas type church goer. DD very anti religion and won't even have her baby christened. DS university student whose life revolves around the Christian Union and the local evangelical church.
Both friends have a good relationship with both their DCs, they accept that they have to make their own decisions, even if it doesn't agree with mother.
Compulsory sex education isn't saying instead of parents-or that parents or wrong, it is merely in addition. DCs need as much information as they can get. The ones who have parents that are objecting are the most in need IMO.

While you might think it's nitpicking, piscesmoon, I think it's just trying to maintain a balanced view where you appear to be giving examples of certain situations and implying they due to controlling parents.

Whether the student lived at home or not was irrelevant imo and was no reflection on whether his parents were happy with the situation or not but you suggested
"I dare say that his parents were happy that he was 'safe in his own bed'"
which you admit you have no idea about and also say that you
"don't think it was a good life for a 21yr old."
when this might have been the best option for that particular 21yo. Your opinions, of course, just as my posts are mine.
If you want me to stop nitpicking, stop dropping the nits

I do agree that it's a good thing for children to be exposed to different views from different people.
I do think though, that they need to be appropriate to the stage of development the child is at. If a caring parent decides that it would be in the interests of their child to be withdrawn from certain things until they are more mature then that should be considered and respected as the parent may know what's in the best interest of the child than someone else. Particularly if the child/young person has communicated that to the parent but feels unable to speak with teachers or peers about it for fear of looking silly.

Frankly, I despair for the future of our supposedly democratic society as more and more of our rights are taken away by the state, whilst never a murmur of opposition is heard...

"Frankly i was overjoyed by the headlines - it means that, for once, the State is standing up for what it believes is right instead of pandering to pressure groups who really have no palce intervening in public education." (MIFLAW)

And what about when the state is a Stalinist one, or a Nazi one, or Zimbabwe, or China... will you still be so happy than that the State is "standing up " for what it believes is right (and in the face of opposition from general public opinion)? Soldiers are being sent to Afghanistan to die in the name of democracy... yet here, yet another right is taken over by the State to widespread applause from those who would kid themselves they are "liberal".

"The Government is pressing ahead despite its own research, which shows that the move is heavily opposed, with 79 per cent of the population backing the right of parents to exempt their children." Link

To me, this whole issue is about so, so much more than sex education.

Where a DC goes to university is irrelevant, the fact that the DC gets to choose is the relevant part. I don't think that going to university and attending lectures and going home is good for any 21yr old, I accept that is my opinion but in the case I mentioned the 21yr old was very unhappy with it-he said so and they helped him socialise which is what he wanted.Quite probably his parents did too, I was only replying to MillyMollyMoo who is 'hoping and praying'her DCs get to university, but only near home. (I hope it has occurred to her that they might not want to go to university).

' If a caring parent decides that it would be in the interests of their child to be withdrawn from certain things until they are more mature then that should be considered and respected as the parent may know what's in the best interest of the child than someone else. Particularly if the child/young person has communicated that to the parent but feels unable to speak with teachers or peers about it for fear of looking silly.'

This is fine IMO if the DC has asked the parent, but not if the parent has just decided that it is not in the best interests of the DC. At 15yrs the DC is old enough to be consulted and their wishes respected.
As a shy teenager I would much rather have sat quietly in the back of the lesson than to have the total embarrassment of everyone knowing that my parents had withdrawn me.

I agree that the we don't want a lot of state control-but I am also against parents thinking they brought the DC into the world and so they can tell it what to think!

A lot of debate seems to focus on what people think will be taught rather than what actually will be taught, so the 79% figure is a bit irrelevant if people don't know what they are objecting to.

All the teaching materials can be looked at on the FPA website. I have looked at the age 6-7 comic and I do not agree with it because it labels the vulva as the vagina (in a picture of external body parts - labelling hair, foot, arm etc).

I think that is absurd from both a scientific and cultural perspective. A vulva is not a vagina. The cultural use of vagina to mean vulva is connected to the whole concept of a female's sexual functions being perceived as about appearances - men thinking of breasts and external pubic area in a sexual way and defining breasts as genitals, the vulva as a reproductive organ etc, when in fact the reproductive organs are internal and not externally visible on a woman. Germaine Greer has repeatedly raised this point about women's sex and sexual organs being seen as an external visual property, thereby conflating sex with gender and femaleness as something that is viewed not experienced.

Scientifically, calling a vulva a vagina is just wrong.

I am not against sex education, but I think that rather than having a knee jerk reaction to what schools will teach, we need to look at the curriculum and debate it.

It is all very well saying trust teachers, but the first teaching material I have opened has a glaring factual error!

The comic itself is lovely though. It is absolutely how I would like my child to be taught about sex and relationships.

What do you think I'm going to do, drag them to University ? how ridiculous.
BUT equally being sat on their arses and in and out of jobs until they are 30 isn't an option either.
I'm afraid I have seen both sides of the story, one where parents are very, maybe too involved in their childs life until the age of 30 and one where the child made the choices until 25, well ongoing really but those choices have not made the person happy, not made them independant, they still live with a parent and act like a child despite being treated as an adult from 15.
People need guidance, I wish I had had much more and somebody to help pick the pieces up, my mistakes have been very expensive financially and emotionally so there is no way I'll be sitting back and letting my kids make the same ones.

"This is fine IMO if the DC has asked the parent"
But it wouldn't be fine if the lesson was compulsory.

As regards parents stopping their children doing things. It's not always as straightforward as it may seem. Sometimes parents are okay with being blamed by their children for not allowing something when the reality is that it is the child that doesn't want to do it but doesn't want to state that to others.

Agree with Millyr post.

MMM

You have to let people make their own mistakes; people learn to be adullts by making mistakes and having their own experiences.

I have heard two University admissions tutors complain to me in the last week alone about parents turning up to open days, and when the tutor asks the student a question, the Mother answers!

How can you teach students who can't answer questions for themselves or think for themselves? That is becoming a growing problem for HE staff.

As for the parent preventing mistakes until the child is 25, I was a parent before 25!

MillyR I would never at the age of 9 answer for my daughter, that's an entirely different scenerio than sitting back and watching them fuck up their GCSE's/ALevels/degree because you don't care enough which is what I have seen happen all under the guise of letting them live their own lives.
I too was a parent before 25, wish I hadn't been though.

But just because you wish you hadn't been a parent at 25, that doesn't mean that it is a bad choice for your daughter.

I think it is madness to push children into doing A levels if they are rebelling against it. They can always do them as mature students. It is a waste for everyone concerned for an 18 year old to go on to HE if they are not really committed to it and are being pushed into it by their parents.

Well I think you're wrong because the example within our own family is that they tend not to ever go back once they've dropped out and in these days where a degree will be required to empty the bins soon, dropping out just won't be an option in this house.
It's been a downward spiral in the case that I am thinking of, agencies jobs, no security to the envitable why bother I'm better off on benefits, all because nobody kicked his arse at 16 to get into college and get on with his life.
2 kids later he still lives with his mother, considers every penny he earns to be pocket money to with what he chooses and basically now the market for labourers have dropped he has no immediate future, how depressing for a 25 year old.
I wish I'd dragged him to college myself looking back.

The poitn of that heart felt speech is that to me a 15 year old is impressionable an 18 year old is not an adult, not really these days and I intend to keep the apron strings very firmly in place until mid twenties, they can leave home when they can cook, clean, budget and keep a roof over their heads and not before.