A mum just told me yr 5 sex ed is explicit and she was gutted

[PartyFants]

Title says it all, her dc is going into year 6, mine is going into year 5. Different schools though, if it matters. She warned me to check the sex ed material before they learn it as she was gutted when she heard how explicit it was, apparently many parents complained.

I'm not a prude, I'm happy for them to learn age appropriate stuff, eggs, sperm, erections, wet dreams etc but he's not a streetwise kid, he's so innocent and sweet I don't like the thought of him having to learn about extra bits like for example oral sex (or whatever she meant by explicit, we didn't discuss specifics) I've only just got him to stop drinking the bath water "because there's bottom germs in there"

I'm a bit spooked, anyone with a year 6 or above child who can give me their experience with the module, please?

[YellowPrimula]

Dame with all due respect do you know many children with asd , I have and I would not be at all surprised that a a just turned 9 ( in my son that would have been a maturity equivent to just turned 7 ) would have had no awareness of such a thing and if it wasn't part of his current craze/ obsession he would not have been talking about it .

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Yes and as I said I'd be surprised if any child hasn't picked up an awful lot from the playground.

[worldsworstchildren]

I bought 'Hair in Funny Places' by Babette Cole for my DD when she was 9. She read it together with her brother who was 8 - they were not fazed in the least.
First half of the book is about girls - periods, hygiene, etc. Second part is about boys and talks about wet dreams (although not using those words) which I wasn't expecting to find in there but I suppose it's all part and parcel.
We've always talked relatively openly about these things and anything that's come up has (hopefully) been answered as directly as possible whilst remaining age appropriate.
She will be watching the video when they go back to school in September - it's all her and her friends (both girls and boys) have talked about for months, they can't wait!

[mrstina]

Sex education is about cultural indoctrination. Despite decades of it, our society is more sexualised than ever.

[mummytime]

In year 5 we received a nuisance call from 2 boys in DS's year at school pretending to be following up his phone call to a prostitute (I did feel like phoning their Mums, but didn't know them really).

If your son has ASD, then I'd suggest you explain everything to him in detail before he hears from school. Because school may not explain clearly enough - and he could easily mis understand. I think the NAS has some materials (I know some places have special sex ed lessons for students with ASD).

And I've just been in France where they are going to start using a 3D printed clitoris in all sex ed from age 5 - having read about it I think most of us have something we could learn.

[MapleandPear]

We've had decades of poor or intermittent sex education in the main, with some exception. Why would society not be sexualised? Human beings are sexual. Teenage pregnancy has been falling for some time, and is at its lowest rate for years, now that we have got a little better at sex education. One thing we have to get better at is combatting the effects of porn and rape culture. Why should kids not be taught about Northern European liberal secular culture, especially when they might come from a very different one.

[Anonymouses]

Ours just learn very basics but it's being changed this year. I think the government are pushing for kids to learn more sooner because it has a very positive effect on teen pregnancy rates etc.

In all honesty in these days of porn being so accessible proper education is key. I left it longer than I should with my eldest because she is also still super innocent and also sensitive. I told her and her sister at same time. She was 11 and horrified, scared and sad. The 9 year old thought it all gross and funny.

Neither seemed to have learnt anything at school. I am very happy for them to learn at school because they will likely do a much better job than I can.

[MsGus]

Can someone help us understand what the benefulits are to providing such explicit info on sex 9/10 year olds?

It can be a reduction in teenage pregnancy as this is largely due to the availability of contraception, morning after pill, and abortion.

It can't be a reduction in sexually transmitted diseases as reductions are largely because of the use of condoms, and campaigns are mainly aimed at adults. These are hardly applicable (or should not be applicable) to children so young. The proportion of children 10 and below with sexual transmitted diseases have always been tiny and almost always the result of sexual abuse.

Besides kids knowing more about sex, what is the beneficial outcome? I struggle to see it.

We are beginning to realise that young people view sex in an unhealthy way and for all the education they are getting, rape amongst young people have sky rocketed, they act irresponsibly, sending naked pictures of themselves to others and abusing others by circulating naked photos of them. More and more young people are addicted to porn and the list goes on. So what has all this sex education achieved?

[MsGus]

Many spelling errors. It's late but I hope you get the gist.

[MsGus]

It should read it can't be a reduction in teenage pregnancy ...

[madgingermunchkin]

Because there can only be a reduction in pregnancies, sti's etc, with correct, comprehensive education about proper usage.
Not only that, but with prolific availability of porn, it's important kids get an honest, balanced view of things, and not just learn from porn.

Re; age. Kids are much more accepting of things younger. If things are explained to them younger, in an age appropriate way, and is just a regular, normal part of life, it becomes much less of a taboo subject. Scandinavian countries start introducing this at 5 years old in an age appropriate way, and their teen pregnancy rates are pretty low. And as far as I am aware, it has not lead to a hyper sexualised environment.

It's like naked bodies. Over here, and America, the general consensus is one of "oh no, we don't do things like that" meaning most kids/teens don't see normal human bodies. They see the airbrushed publicity photos and wonder why they don't look like that. In Europe, when it's more common for communal changing rooms etc and a less prudish attitude to nakedness, it's less of an issue.

[mrstina]

MsGus

Exactly - in true left wing fashion when decades of sex education, more promiscuous sexual morality end up with exactly what it was always going to - more (as in casual) and younger sex, the left wing proponents just say 'it wasn't done properly' and then come up with the stupid idea of teaching it younger and younger and forcing people to have to be indoctrinated in it.

Any reductions in teenage pregnancy are really reductions in teenage live births and easily accounted for by abortions, morning after pills - it's all just statistical manipulation, something which this country should lobby to become an Olympic sport, because we would always get the gold medal.

[Believeitornot]

Given that porn is far too freely available and accessible by any child with a phone, I'm very supportive about being as open as possible with children about sex.

Given that government and misguided idiots who think that restriction access to porn is somehow an infringement on "free speech" or something we need to make sure our children have healthy attitudes to sex.

And I'm afraid that means telling them it exists. Before they find out in a playground from a smart phone.

[blinkowl]

mrstina and MrsGus while you were clutching your pearls / imagining lefty plots did you miss the poster who explained that teaching some of the more explicit stuff is done for safeguarding reasons?

Or the one that said the Samaritans was set up because a young girl committed suicide because she got her period and thought she was dying because no one had explained it to her.

Two significant differences between our own childhoods and the environment that DC are growing up in today are that girls are getting their periods / starting puberty much earlier (scientists have various theories about why this is happening, but not one of them AFAIK suspects left wing politics as a cause) and also the huge availability of porn at a much younger age than most of us would have become aware of it.

Being taught about sex by someone with safeguarding and positive health outcomes as their driving force is surely preferable to other misinformed children and the Internet.

Why would you not want your DC to have information that could protect them?

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Exactly, you are far less likely to experiment if you have all the correct knowledge.

Contraception has been available for years and years ,if pregnancy rates in teens are low ( I didn't realise they were but thank God because they've been high for so long!) it's because of better education which then leads you to make informed choices about contraception.

Girls are starting their periods at 8 and 9 these days,it really isn't unusual so again,arm them with facts!

And most of all as the pp said knowledge can helo keep them safe.

It really shouldn't be one big talk at 9, you should be drip feeding information in an age appropriate way from when they are small. By the time they have the talk at school nothing should be a surprise.

Why would you not want your DC to have information that could protect them

Exactly

[titchy]

Abortion, contraception and the morning after pill have been available for the past 40 years. Not sure why some posters think these are recent innovations and therefore responsible for the decline in teenage pregnancy rates...

Like it or not, kids are exposed to sex at a younger age than we were, primarily due to the widespread internet access everyone has. Equipping children with knowledge about how their bodies work, what sex actually is (as opposed to what they may be inadvertently exposed to) and demystifying the whole thing empowers kids, which is a good thing.

[Believeitornot]

^This

My 6 year old has asked where babies have come from and I've told him. First it was just about the egg and sperm but as he got older he wanted to know "how" they meet so I've added a bit more detail.

I've also added a bit of context - it's about doing this with someone you want to etc. And the broader context of relationships - respecting other people's choices (eg he had a "girlfriend" but it transpired that he'd just decided he wanted someone as his girlfriend so I explained that the other person has to agree as well )

I don't want my dd or ds to be shy or embarassed about sex. I want them to be confident.

[MsGus]

I'm not clutching at my pearls. I think sex education is necessary. I am querying the content and the age at which some aspects are taught.

One person mentioned it is necessary to understand how to correctly use contraceptives. Seriously? At 9 years?

If the explicit content taught at age 9 is about safeguarding then I think there are better ways to do that. I am not aware that the context within which these explicit contents are taught is about helping the child to understand when they are being sexually abuse.

Nevertheless, I still ask myself what has been the benefit because things have gotten worse rather than better.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

What's got worse?

[MsGus]

By the way, when I teach my son that no one must touch certain parts of his body and generally about abuse, I do not feel it necessary to show him videos of oral sex or go into explicit depth.

The key thing I want my son to know is that if he has a question about sex, he should feel comfortable asking me or his dad. I want him to have a healthy understanding and relationship with sex. That does not require ramming explicit info down his throat for the sake of it.

It's not good for kids to be fed explicit content without there being patental support and guidance to help them make sense of it all. It is a well known fact that a large proportion of parents don't spend time helping their kids with school work. Do the outcome is kids with knowledge of sex but no clue how to deal with that knowledge in a responsible manner.

[MsGus]

Dame, sorry but I can't engage with your juvenile response, with your confused emoticon and pretence of not knowing what I'm talking about especially as I've flagged the worsening situation in an earlier post.

I already know your response will be that you genuinely don't know what I'm talking about. But hey ...

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

I asked a question -what's got worse? I'm reading from my phone, hard to go back in detail over every post. You don't want to answer which is fine.

[MindSweeper]

When I was that age I already knew a whole lot about sex, but not all of it was true. It would have certainly had been helpful to learn about it properly rather than myths on the playground.

[blinkowl]

MsGus videos of oral sex?! Shown to 9 year olds?

What are you on about?

Where has anyone mentioned that?!

[Heathen4Hire]

Agree with other posts, you have to arm your kids with information to keep them safe.

I gave my nine year old a book about growing up called Girls Only! (Author forgotten, but from Amazon) and she found it very helpful. It's not just sex, it's relationships, what is normal and loving , what is abuse and control, how to "keep your privates private" how to deal with spots, body changes etc. At my DD school parents are told that phse is compulsory. DD found some things startling but otherwise she accepted it.

I would educate your son first, with the basics, then it won't be such a surprise to him when he gets lessons at school. There are tons of resources online and books on Amazon. I would steer clear of videos. And keep the convo light and open. "You can ask me anything," and "I am here to help you"are good things to say.