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!

MMM, I think your plans are ill advised and you can't stop a 16 year old from leaving and doing what they want. I left home as a teenager and did my A levels while living in a squat in London rather than live with my over-controlling parents. I have never regretted that decision and my life has turned out okay. The only people who it had a negative effect on were my parents and their deluded aspiratons.

All of these anecdotes are really irrelevant; we all have to look a bit further than our family experiences to make our decisions. I know plenty of students drop out or even develop mental health problems due to parents who have pushed them into uni, or the wrong uni, or the wrong degree that I have no interest for or aptitude in. Not everybody is suited to HE. I work in HE but I would not make my children go if they expressed a preference to be a carpenter or a shop assistant.

That should have been they have no interest for, not I have...

They need to complete a three year course to be a Carpenter, shop assistants need NVQ's Level 3 to crawl above the breadline of minimum wage, I feel quite sad if you are prepared to allow your child a life of poverty or being trapped at home because wages being paid to trades people and shop assistants even in the North West are too low to cover the rent in areas I wouldn't go after dark.
The students you describe with mental health problems could probably use more support ie living at home throughout their degree.

Oh and I have looked beyond my own family unfortunately I have to to find any sucess stories.

You can do lots of training courses while at work for most skilled manual jobs. We have a whole range of workmen in our house doing it up right now, including apprentices who had no qualifications before being taken on. Our neighbour has a degree in Classics from Oxford and has retrained on the job as a plumber. My brother left school at 16, has never been to Uni, and did all his training at work and gets paid in excess of £50,000 a year for skilled, manual work in engineering. My sister is a manager in a well known chain of stores and has no relavent qualifications to any area of retail. More importantly, both of my siblings are happy in the jobs they have chosen.

No offence to you, MMM, because you have clearly thought your perspective through. But fear of being working class seems to be rife on MN, and many children are made miserable by being pushed into a narrow academic path that they are not suited for.

' 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 a big, big mistake. You can't let people learn from your mistakes. My mother has admitted that she would like to wrap me in cotton wool (this was in my 30's!)and keep me safe. Of course I can see where she is coming from, I can't bear the thought of my DSs getting hurt or mucking up their lives however they need to be free to do it. I have told my mother that I completely understand, but I need to work things out for myself and if I get hurt, I get hurt.
I wasn't suggesting that you drag them to university MMM- but they may not have the same aspirations as you.

I am not at all how I may appear on here, I am a people pleaser, anything for an easy life and will always avoid trouble through diplomacy -but MMM, I couldn't stand your control and I would leave home at the very first opportunity! Attached to apron strings until mid 20's is stifling! My DH1 was dead before he got to 30 but he at least had an independant life. You should read the MIL threads on here to see where over control gets you!

We're importing our trades people not training them, I went on a course a few years ago to train as an electrician, I needed to do the house up and it seemed like a good idea.
On the course were plenty of young hard working lads who were very willing to learn, unfortunately they needed work placements.
There were none, this was during the "boom" of 2006, god knows what it's like now. Catch 22, nobody will take you on because the Poles are cheaper and better at the job and you can't become good at the job without doing it.
This will only get worse as it's affecting the Middle Classes now, I know a lot of call centre 1st class graduates.
But still if I had to choose to degree or not to degree then mine will be the best qualified hairdressers on the block to give them every opportunity to ride the storms.

sorry -independent

DS1 is working in Australia for a few months-he is in his 20's and would find it laughable that he was still supposed to be under my supervision.

Yes but the fact that he is in Australia is down to your input and influence, my family member hasn't been anywhere since he 16 because he doesn't have the mum or dad suggesting why not as part of the bigger picture of your life pop to Oz for a couple of months.

I didn't suggest it-he has gone as part of his job in the UK.
DS2 has a trade, I predict that he will end up being more 'successful' than either of his brothers, purely because he has the drive and is interested in money.

I understand entirely where you are coming from MMM, we all want the very best for our DCs and we don't want them to make big mistakes and mess up their lives. I loved it when mine were all asleep, safe in the home, but they have to be free.

I have guided mine and I thought, before mumsnet, that I was a control freak but I appear to be quite liberal! I wish my DSs thought so!

As a parent our job is to gradually let go. I don't find it easy, I can't sleep until I know they are in at night.
By the time DS3 went off he needed to know how to cook for himself, use a washing machine and iron etc. He needed to find out for himself that he doesn't like to drink too much, that he can meet deadlines for work without his Mum organising, that he can work out when he needs to go to bed etc.
Students who are used to heavy parental supervision are the ones that get into difficulty-they go mad when 'let off the leash'.

All the MIL problems seem to come from over control IMO. If my DS1's girlfriend thought that I needed to supervise my DS in his 20's she would probably run a mile-with good reason! I would be the MIL from hell.

I would give it some serious thought MMM -you need to trust (however hard).

I think that there is a vast difference between guiding and influencing and controlling. My parents had very high expectations of us, and we've always felt we had a lot to live up to. Mostly that was reat, and liberating and stretching, but sometimes we felt that if we didn't succeed they wouldn't be very proud of us, and that was fairly undermining. I hope to be a little more balanced with my two. I expect them to work hard, to be true to themselves, to explore the world and make up their minds about to think and be. To succeed as much as they can, doing whatever they are good at affords them a living and makes them happy.

I'll be giving advice and support along the way, but it is their life, and I will expect them to start making decisions in a few years, and those decisions will become more important and more independent as they get older (currently 9 and 10). I do expect them to go to university - their choices will be about what to study and where to go - not whether to go, but as we are already talking about that now (and they have the aptitude and academia does run very strongly in my family), I don't think that will be a difficulty for them.

The job of parents as I see it is to make sure that our children have a really good basis for decision making. That they are strong and confident and understand the consequences of their actions.

Not sure what this has to do with sex ed though. I'm of the talk to them throughout life school of thought - nothing they get told at 15 is going to be a surprise if I can help it.

'The job of parents as I see it is to make sure that our children have a really good basis for decision making. That they are strong and confident and understand the consequences of their actions.'

This is so true. To my mind, it means from an early age that they are coming into contact with different views and they are free to make up their own mind, it isn't something they will suddenly aquire in their mid 20's, when the parent decides they are mature enough.

I thought that my mother was controlling but at least she left our minds free! There was a thread the other week about vegetarianism which still leaves me shocked. I can fully accept that a vegetarian won't cook meat, the DCs will be brought up as vegetarians and they will keep them off meat entirely as under 5's (possibly under 8's)but one poster wouldn't allow her 12 yr old to eat meat!
I would have no objection to my mother thinking eating meat cruel and disgusting and not cooking it in the home, but I find it utterly bizarre that she would expect me to think the same! Why should I?

'Not sure what this has to do with sex ed though. I'm of the talk to them throughout life school of thought - nothing they get told at 15 is going to be a surprise if I can help it.'

I think that it has a lot to do with it. If you have always talked about it, a school sex education lesson at 15 isn't going to be shocking or surprising, it is merely some more information and possibly some different views that the DC is free to accept or reject or modify to suit them.
School lessons can't suit everyone. I hated the way my DCs were taught 'Food Technology', but I didn't withdraw them from the lesson!

So what if, at 15y, sex ed holds no surprises but the child decides that it's personal and they would rather not take part.

I don't know how far the parent in the vegetarian thread went. Whether eating meat outside the home was okay. But consider if it was smoking. If your child decided to smoke in the home would you be okay with that - their choice?

You tend to take small unimportant points juuule. I wasn't saying that it was OK for the 12 yr old to eat meat in the home-she would need to respect her mother's views, but there is no need for her to think the same and she should be able to eat meat at school or at a friend's house or at a party etc. Absolutely no one smokes in my house-it is my house. I would point out the dangers to my DCs and I would be very disappointed if they smoked, but I would have to accept that they might not think the same and that I can't control what they do when I don't see them. They don't smoke but this is more through example and the right information.

If the DC doesn't want to take part and has asked you to withdraw them from sex education lessons, then I have absolutely no argument with it, I said that much earlier.
I have a huge issue with it if it comes from the parent.
I also, as a shy DC would have died of embarrassment if my mother had singled me out by withdrawing me.

Maybe unimportant to you, pisces, but who are you to say what is or isn't important to me? Maybe I'm not great at understanding what's being said or maybe you are not explaining what you mean very well. However, to me, it sometimes apppears that you attempt to trivialise questions which highlight flaws in your logic.

Whether or not you would have been embarrassed at being withdrawn from classes, some children would not be. If the classes are compulsory how then it would appear they won't have the option to be withdraw. And not all children will be mature enough to state their own wishes about being withdrawn and so parents would have to intervene on their behalf.

My own experience seems to suggest that those of my peers who ended up being pushed into life choices by parents determined not to let them repeat their own mistakes have ended up very very unhappy people- and extremely resentful of their parents.

I do have a few friends whose parents tried to exercise control well into adulthood; they have not met with ultimate success and their relationships have been damaged.

I am very grateful to my own parents who let me try out on my own: they couldn't have known what was right for me, but I feel I have got to the place where I want to be. I was certainly an adult by 18 and do not regret the choices I made then; I am a more satisfied person than my Mum was at my age.

MMR wrote:
"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"

So what do you do if they simply say, politely but firmly, 'sorry Mum, I'm leaving' and walk out of the door? I am sure I would have done so long before my mid-twenties (by which time I was working abroad and living with the man later to become dh), whatever my parents did to stop me. I love them dearly, but really I felt I had a right to my own life. I know they were very dubious about dh, when he first came into my life (I was 19), my Mum was also extremely unhappy about my emigrating- but from my pov those were the right decisions to make

Maybe I'm coming accross badly, I'm much better face to face, I don't disagree with anything that you've said Cory.
Drifting along is my biggest fear/objection and I see that direction coming from me not the school and not the state and sharing my life experiences with them I'm pretty confident will send them running in the opposite direction to that which my life and siblings have taken.

' And not all children will be mature enough to state their own wishes about being withdrawn and so parents would have to intervene on their behalf.'

I have absolutely no objection to that juuule, but I have a huge objection to the parent telling the DC that they are being withdrawn because the parent wants them withdrawn. If the DC say that they wish to go, then the parent should respect their wishes and not impose their own by saying 'you are not mature enough'.
At 15yrs I would have taken grave exception to my mother imposing her wishes under the excuse that she could ignore mine because I wasn't mature enough. Quite probably I wasn't (I cringe at some of the beliefs I had as a teenager) and I have to say that my mother has almost always been right (not that I would ever tell her!) because she has an enormous amount of common sense and life experience, however the really important thing is that I should be free to have my own beliefs and make my own mistakes in life. You do not learn by someone else's mistakes.
If you are sensible MillyMollyMoo you will realise that your DCs can work things out for themselves and guidance and communication will get you much further than trying to control what you can't control. At 18 you have to treat them like adults, even if you think they are too young. You can't have control of DCs in their early 20's. My DS1 has a responsible job, when asked to go to Australia he couldn't have possibly said 'I must ask my mother if I can go'!!

I always wonder with this subject, if it was called "Contraception Education" would there be less complaints against it?

It isn't just contraception education. They have always had sex education-I had it at school and I am pretty ancient!
The complaints come from the 'compulsory' part-which I can understand. I am a bit undecided on that one, as I don't think that the state should have too much power in family life.
I would certainly agree that at a younger age it isn't something that can come well from school, and is much better tackled at home. But by 15yrs I think it a good thing because either the parents have done the job well and it is just another approach or they haven't done it at all, all sorts of things have been picked up in the playground, and they need the information-especially since they are a matter of months off the age of legal consent.

I don't have a problem with any of PHSE. It's something that I can see my children benefiting from, and that they have enjoyed telling me about. I can't see any reason why at 15 they should suddenly find it difficult. If the discussion becomes embarrassing I expect that they will just switch off like most people. I can't imagine that there will be shows of hands for who has had sex, or requirements to talk about life stories or sexual escapades. At the same age (possibly younger) I had to listen to my mother telling me that all men were essentially rapists (animal urges type stuff), that sex was to be tolerated in marriage (lie back and think of England type stuff), how her mother had sent her to a special clinic before her wedding (where she was "stretched") and that she personally had preferred horses (riding that is). Nothing covered at school (we did the put a condom on a banana type stuff) could possibly have been as embarrassing as that.

Which just goes to prove that the parent isn't always the best person to give advice,nooka!
It was much easier for me to sit quietly at the back of the class, than to be singled out as the one who didn't attend.

Mumsnet, always guaranteed to support "the state" telling everyone to live like people on Mumsnet agree they should.

PMSL at "finally the state sticking up for what it believes is"

Yes, the poor downtrodden state finally fighting back against all those crazy parents who think they know best how to raise their own children.

There is no way I would want a child of mine to be withdrawn from sex ed lessons at any age, never mind 15, but I find the idea of compulsory education in this area quite chilling.

If parents prefer to educate their children in relationships and sexuality themselves, then I can't really see that it is the place of government to interfere with that.

If adolescents of 15 are old enough to decide this matter for themselves (and I think they are), then sure they have the option of withdrawing themselves if they'd prefer not to take part in the lesson? Or is 15 old enough to make decisions independently of your parents, but not of the government?