Sex and Relationship education for 5-10 year olds.

[webquack]

Hi everyone. I'm looking for mums who are as angry as I am about the current government proposals to introduce compulsory sex and relationship education (SRE)for 5-10 year olds. I am also unashamedly asking for more signatures on the No. 10 website which is asking Gordon Brown to conduct a 12 week public consultation on these proposals so that parents and others can have their say. Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, and this inspite of decades of sex education in secondary schools. SRE hasn't worked. So what does the government do? They introduce the more SRE! Do you want your five-year-old to be naming body parts, being informed about intimacy and what is and isn't appropriate touching? Do you want your child sexualised at an early age and to lose their innocence any earlier than necessary? If not please join the growing chorus of concerned parents by going to: petitions.number10.gov.uk/Parentchoice

Custardo

I agree with you that the government's solution to many problems seems to be to deal with it through schools, when more emphasis should be put on dealing with problems in wider society rather than a captive audience of school children. I think there has been a confusion between the role of parents and the role of schools.

But I do not see how schools can avoid teaching some SRE. For 5 year olds, SRE is not about sex; it is about relationships. If your child attends school, they are having a a relationship with other children and the teacher, and the school has to talk about relationships, and what is appropriate in school and how these institutional relationships are different to home relationships. It is unfair on other children if your child has not been taught how to understand this, and only school can teach this because home is not an institutional environment.

When your children are older, schools have to teach the mechanics of reproductive sex, because it is basic fact of biology and so has to be taught and tested if children are to leave school with a qualification in science.

Schools also have to teach some elements of morality (not sexually harrassing people, not saying gay student are disgusting) because to premit some forms of sexually related behaviour is illegal both in and outside of the school environment, and such behaviour is common in schools and has to be dealt with by the school.

The reason that SRE is going to tie these disparate concepts together is that secondary school children have requested it.

DOesn't surprise me that webquack is fronting for some tosspot christian organisation. Rightwing christians have a high proportion of domestic abusers among their ranks: these are often the sort of people who think that a man sins less when he fiddles with his prepubescent DD than if he pays for sex or wanks over porn.

My main problem with some of wq's views are that they are really dangerous.

I have a (female) colleague who still bears the mental and physical scars from a homophobic attack (she was set upon my a gang of men) and wq's archaic views lend support to those kind of bullies.

How she can hold her head up and think that she is 'good' and 'right' I really can't imagine.

You aren't contributing anything to the debate SGB. In fact you are being very very rude.

Webquack, your views on homosexuality are outdated.

bits do fit together actually, and people make it work for them and are very happy.

I would imagine the counter agrument to be alon the lines of - if god meant a man and a man...

well be didn't mean us to fly - we adapted.

apart from that, i do agree that it shouldn't be taken out of the parents hands entirely, however there needs to be a measure put in its place.

if the 'choice' is one standard fits all 5 year olds

or

nothing/rely on the highly excellent parenting skills of this countries parents as they stand.

i would go for option one.

if option two - were to add it to the skills base taught to parents in parenting classes - then that would be my choice

but it isn't , sadly

First, Custardo - let me kiss you. You are SO right. Thank goodness you can see what is happening. The gov uses schools to dispense their agenda on how they think the populace should think. I see it as manipulation - we are not the free society we like to think. Even Prince Harry has been dragged across the coals for cracking a few locker room jokes - and forced to apologise. What a farce. Change - ie getting people to say and do what is right - cannot be imposed from the ouside through political correcteness. Change begins on the inside of a person - this change then works its way out into the person's actions, thoughts and words. making laws which ban racist remarks does not stop racist thinking. How many Brits have you heard say "I.m not racist but I'm getting hacked off with the number of foreigners just walking in...." I've heard more than I care to mention. They won't say it publicly - but behind closed doors there are seething resentments. My neighbour is incenced by the unrestrained influx of immigration.

if you kiss me your a lezzer!

Im not associated in any way with the Christian Institute. I pasted some of their articles here just so some of you could read what people other than the gov. are saying. Neither are they 'behind' the petition. However i am in total agreement with what they stand for and as far as I can tell they are an excellent organisation who are doing a first class job of making info available to people so that we can be better informed about some of dangerous trends taking place in our country. actually I'd be proud to be associated with them, but I'm not.

OK custardo - then I don't kiss you. I was just glad to hear you say what you did about the gov.

you can kiss me, i dont mind

Yay, thank you webquack!

I'd be following this thread with amusement wondering whether you were (a) a bit bored and feeling antagonistic (b) a member of the BNP or (c) a wacko right-wing religious nut. I felt it was a bit rude to ask upfront so thanks for answering me in absentia.

MillyR - you say schools cannot avoid teaching about relationships. well, I guess they have always taught them in the sense that school rules have to be obeyed - consideration for others etc. This is just common sense. But why turn it into a national curriculum subject for crying out loud?! Now it is the teachers who are being treated like idiots - as if they themselves cannot competently teach Harry that pulling Suzy's hair is not a nice thing to do. No, the relationships that are being taught about in sre will ultimately be sexual ones. They will no doubt begin by talking about family rels. such as granny and uncle - this is an obvious starting point, because these are the relationships children know about. Now why does a school need to talk about that? what is there to say? It only becomes something to be discussed if there is an agenda behind it - and that agenda is sexual. It may not be graphic to begin with - but it will become increasingly so as your child moves through primary school - and the fact that teh gov has approved reading material for primary (and secondary schools) which endorses homosexual relationships, is a telling sign The Sexual Orientation Bill has got the gov by its short 'n curlies - they have cornered themselves by saying yay and amen to the homosexual agenda.

cestlavie - if you check this discussion from its outset you will see that all the rude and unpleasant things that could have been said, have been said. I think I am immune by now.

Brokenrecord - I am not a gay basher in the sense you are saying it. First, as far as I am concerened they are human beings worthy of as much regard as anyone else. I used to socialise regularly with a gay bloke and my hairdresser was gay. we had some grand chats. In my view gay peole are hurting. I think they are the way they are because of some deep rooted trauma and possibly bad parenting. I met a Spanish woman who had recently arrived in the UK. She told me that since arriving here and meeting lesbians she was starting to wonder whether she also might be gay. It then emerged she had a very bad relationship with her father. I befriended her but I in no way encouraged her to become a lesbian. Attacking someone because they are gay makes no more sense than attacking someone because they are Catholic or Moslem. It goes about making a distinction between the person and their behaviour. To use a different expression, which you may ersent, God loves the sinner but not the sin. That is the case for all sinners and all sin. (sorry if you find my use of teh word sin 'antiquated' but I think you still get my meaning.

I've tried really hard not to open this thread but I've been drawn in.

I know a smidge about this and these proposals. Some of them include teaching 5 year olds using terms such as 'Domestic Abuse' and 'Sexual Abuse' and similar.

Our Board of Gov's have decided against using the proposals. The feeling was that whilst school must go some way to educating about such things, it is a parents right to teach such subject matter at a time and in a way they see fit. The terminology was felt to be inappropriate and using such terminology was potentially counter-productive.

You know how the word 'BULLY' has been pretty much devalued and all young children will claim bullying if anyone so much as looks at them the wrong way? Well, imagine your DH bathing your 5 year old daughter. That day, she'd learnt all about sexual abuse and inappropriate touching yada yada....so she comes in to school the next day and announces her daddy sexually abused her the night before. Yes, the guidelines and teacher training are supposed to enable the staff to pick out truth from child-confusion but never-the-less, is it what we want?

Ok, my mistake re the petition - I did say that it seemed to be the case - I'm sure you can understand why I thought so as they are campaigning strongly in similar areas.

I disagree with your theory about gay people, and I do believe that it is set in their biology (in the vast majority of cases.) How do you absolve yourself from responsibility for 'gay-bashing' when you make such strong anti-gay public statemnets? Can you not see that the two things are linked?

There's a "Homosexual Agenda"?
Wow, they might be gay because of "some deep rooted trauma and possibly bad parenting", but they obviously have pretty shit hot organisational skills. Straight people certainly haven't managed to coalesce into one homogenous group that share a common agenda. We haven't even got badges

Doodle2u
you said "Our Board of Gov's have decided against using the proposals. "

Can schools opt out like this? If these proposals were to be made compulsory, as is being said, how would opting out happen?

Brokenrecord - i wish gay people no harm whatsoever. But when they want to infiltrate my sons' minds via public bodies, such as schools, as they are planning to do, that just makes my hackles rise. Why? Because as we all know young kids are impressionable. That impressionableness is built into them is so that they can quickly absorb the world around them. See how quickly they acquire language and how they often do so by association. My sons often repeat back words to me which they have learnt when they went to a particular place. In other words they associate the word with the place they learnt it at. So when they return to that place they may even chirp out the fact of infromation they first learnt there - meanwhile I have long forgotten about it. So if, while they are still very young they are exposed to images such as those in the book 'Daddy's roommate' which depict two men in bed together, that impression will remain with them - it will become part of their schemata of what they understand as 'normal' and 'acceptable' - the way things ought to be. It is called learnt behaviour - it is the same as a child always witnessing fights between his parents - he will learn that shouting and angry words are the right way to make your point.

Bye the way, thank you Doodle2u for mentioning the bit you know about the SRE content. We are pretty much in the dark here about the actual content - it is still being discussed I believe. i have no doubt in my mind that I do not want that kind of vocabulary and concept going into my sons' heads.

So you don't think gay relationships are "normal" or "acceptable", and you're worried that your son might learn that they are normal and acceptable through SRE lessons at school. You've made your point very clearly.

And do I detect a suggestion that you think education about gay relationships might encourage children to become gay?

"It is called learnt behaviour - it is the same as a child always witnessing fights between his parents - he will learn that shouting and angry words are the right way to make your point."

Doodle2i - you have also made a brilliant point - which I also see as a potentail danger - that the intimacy parents enjoy with their children may beging to be misinterpreted by th e children after being told such and such is inappropriate touching. My hub baths with our boys and as a family we are still ok with nakedness - tho they are 3 and 4. Until now I haven't felt it necessary to immediately cover up in front of them. I also once read in a book by a psychologist that naked wrestling between a father and his sons is very psychologically and emotinally healthy even up to puberty. What would the school make of that one?

yes, combustible, that is what I think - or at least it will cause confusion in their mands. It contradicts all we stand for as Christians - I can never condone it - tho I wish gays no harm.

if, while they are still very young they are exposed to images such as those in the book 'Daddy's roommate' which depict two men in bed together, that impression will remain with them - it will become part of their schemata of what they understand as 'normal' and 'acceptable' - the way things ought to be>>

Webquack, thank you for the convincing argument that SRE does have a good and lasting effect. That's cause to celebrate. They won't have to unlearn all the prejudices that I've had to as I got older.

Btw when you say "They want to infiltrate my sons' minds via public bodies, such as schools, as they are planning to do" it makes you sound very paranoid.