Sex and Relationship education for 5-10 year olds.

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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

and it's time for me to 'return'. (Piercing whistle and white, spangly chariot appears, driven by White Witch of Narnia) "Take me back please!" (crack of whip, and laden chariot streams through dense snow-laden trees - on and on - until) "stop!". (gets out and looks all around) "aha - over there" - (steps onto crisp, deep snow, pushing thick branches aside, reaches into thick cluster of leaves) "here it is" opens door - steps into wardrobe and slips from sight..................................

Yes, I was getting the feeling you did not plan to answer this question. Every time I ask it, you start speculating on my identity or the quality of my faith or something else that should be pretty irrelevant to the simple question. Why is sex the only subject supposedly related to personal morality?

Jesus summerizd the rules that Christians should follow as:

Love the Lord, your God.

Love your neighbour as yourself.

These two statements summerize what was in the old testatment rather than override. For example if you steal, commit murder, commit adultury, covert your neighbours possessions etc. you are not loving your neighbour as yourself.

These two statement also apply to any area of morality. There are certain sins like paying for internet child porn, which are against Christianity, but not in the bible.

I think with sexual relationships you can think of partners as being your neighbours. Ie. spreading sexual diseases, sexual infelity, hurts others. Good SRE lessons should reduce the risk of people getting hurt and get children to think.

Nobody seems to consider that not every school child in England is actally Christian. The issue is not about Christian values but about SRE in primary school.

Gorionine is right: we are getting side-tracked a bit.

(but ReallyTired's posts are brilliant all the same)

rustling of leaves.....thick snow tumbles from snow-laden branches - lands on bed of snow -" ah - back in Narnia. Howzit?"

(shouts) KAY, WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!If Kay comes back to this discussion this is for her

you seemed to object to the fact that I think Christians have a responsibility to operate at all levels of society. You seemed to be saying that because we live in a secular society Christians should not expect to bring about change on a societal level.

I say we should expect it. Why? It is based on certain premises.

1. Whose world is this? According to the Bible it is God's world. Read Genesis. Therefore there is not one square inch of this planet that does not belong to him - neither is there one human being or animal etc that doesn't ultimately belong to him.

1. God has an enemy: satan. Understood from the Bible to be a fallen angel who fell because he wanted to be equal to God and therefore rebelled. And has since been waging war on all that God created - specifically humans.

Once we accept these 2 premises it becomes apparent that there is a battle at hand - call it a battle for territory. This battle in the spiritual realms is played out on earth - commonly known as the fight between good and evil, which we are familiar with. The world is God's territory but Satan (who is portrayed as an arch angel with terrific powers ) has wreaked havoc on earth - hence all the suffering and evil and things falling apart. (I am not eliminating human sinfulness from this equation)

The fall of man in Genesis is the first example of this - and who initiated that fall ?- Satan - in the form of a snake. (let's not get into whether it was a literal snake or not please - i have enough to do here!!)
This fall resulted in man's separation from God - which Kay I am sure you agree with. What did God do? His plan was to reverse this by sending Christ into the world - to 'buy back' that which had been lost - humankind. And as you know this has been going on and is going on as more and more people become born again. Look at China and South Korea and Africa where the church is growing in leaps and bounds - tho it is not happening here in the west.

God's plan therfore is to take back what is his. How is he going to do that? Through the church! God has chosen peole to be his arms and legs - it is therefore not surprising that evennon-Christians have been used by God and they are not aware of it!! It is teh church however that is directly responsible to act on God's behalf.

You said Kay that personal evangelism is all that the church should engage in. Whilst I agree evangelism is a top priority it is not the only activity we should be involved in. If it were you would need to close down all those christian organisations which exist to influence society on a wider level such as: The Lawyers Christian Fellowship, Christian Concern For Our Nation, CARE, The Christian Institute and so forth. There are even Christian interns who are placed alongside politicians at westminster. Would you like to see all that cease Kay ?- so that we are restricted to only chatting over the garden fence with our neighbours about Jesus?

NO - the church needs to be strident, loud and vociferous - not in an obnoxious judgemental way (tho some of you will see me as just that - LOL - tho in my 'other life' I am not)The problem is that the church in the UK has failed to carry out its mandate. It has become weak, ineffectual and compromised. The CHURCH is responsible for the shambles we are in in this country - why? because it has failed to stand up, stand out and be different. Which is what I have been saying all along. It has caved in to pressure from the world - the Anglican Church is a prize example of this - look what a laughing stock it has become as an institution (thankfully there are still some corners of the AC which are standing up for the truth)
It is time for the church to stop bickering and "biting and devouring" each other and to turn to face our real enemy who is Satan. we should encourage one another to be bold and strong and to not shrink back from the threats of the enemy. THEN we will see God's Kingdom advance and the territory which has been lost being clawed back. It can happen but WE have to MAKE IT HAPPEN.

This is precisely what Jesus was accused of: of failing to be strident and vociferous in taking a stand against the government of his day. And certainly that government was responsible for some shockingly irreligious measures.

May I ask again why SRE involves personal morality in a way which other subjects do not? Surely the Bible tells us that personal morality comes into ownership, non-sexual relations with other people, our attitude to violence etc etc. There is no suggestion in the Bible that we can only sin with our genital parts.

PS if you haven't read CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters - please get hold of it. It is a brilliant portrayal of the battle I have been referring to.

Yes, I have read Lewis.

May I just ask why SRE involves personal morality in a way which other subjects do not? Surely the Bible tells us that personal morality comes into ownership, non-sexual relations with other people, our attitude to violence etc etc.

Cory I answered this question earlier in this discussion - please page back - as I don't want to repeat myself - again.So Cory are you too of the opinion that chriatians should not seek to bring change at a societal level?

cory ,look for teh bit where we were discussin ghte difference between the morality of sre and that of subjects including drilling for oil!! It is in there somewhere!

you say the church should not be loud and vociferous - how many times have you heard non-christins hurl accusations of "and what did the church do about that? - nothing!!" There is even an accusation like that earlier in thi discussion when someone objected to teh fact the church had been silent over teh iraq war! What does it mean in the song "stand up stand up for jesus ye soldiers of the cross"? Again I repeat myself cory, do you think the church should keep quiet when our gov makes laws which are destroying human life and not in people's best interests?

When Hitler was in power he silenced the catholic church in the midst of tehr holocaust by giving it certain rights and freedoms if it did not oppose him. It accepted his offer and remained mute.
According to your thinking that was the right thing for teh church to do.

I am not looking for your answer to the oil drilling question, I am looking for your answers to my objections to your answer to that.

Namely, that though oil drilling may be irrelevant to most of us, school already covers various things which do involve personal morality and are also relevant to all of us. Examples of these are attitudes towards ownership, the way we use language (charity), the way we deal with race relations, attitudes to violence etc. All these come into a variety of school subjects.

I do not see sex education as different/more personally moral than say how we think of/speak of people of different races. And this is something that schools do have to deal with.

Further, I do not think Christians should keep quiet when the government makes wrong decisions. I marched against the Iraqi war together with thousands of Christians.

But you should only protest against something if you actually believe it is wrong. I feel like ReallyTired that SRE, teaching a responsible and respectful attitude towards other people's bodies, is a good way of promoting the overruling law of loving thy neighbour. It is my Christian duty to stand up for what I believe and I shall continue to do so.

you cannot argue that because the jews expected jesus to overthrow rome that means chriatians should not seek to influence society. Jesus' agenda was not poitical in that sense - he was heralding the onset of God's Kingdom - he was not trying to set up government. That is man's thinking. As a christian I am not advocating toppling our gov but advancing the kingdom . If we have godly laws in this country it will benefit the populace and help to bring in the kingdom - not some earthly theocracy.

Bye everyone,

you will definitely not read me on this thread anymore. I hope I will still have the pleasure to meet some of yous on others though.
How on earth it got from OP to that is behond me.

Cory you are missing the point that sre will NOT be taught from a personal morality perspective. That's the first thing. If you doubt this then consider the sexual health clinics proposed for every secondary school which are not there to discourage sexual activity but to police potential pregnancies and sTDs. The people who are proposing those are the very people who are proposing more sre.
Second, talk of molestation with 5 year olds (see Doodle2u's posts) is inappropriate. I wish we could see the proposals she received for sre at her school. Got them yet Doodle?

Cory, you must tell Kay that you marched against the Iraq War. According to her thinking Christians should put up and shut up!

By Gorionine - I'll see you on the subject of manual versus electric breast pumps

No, but they are not taught from the negative morality perspective either: they are not encouraging early sex.

They supply the facts, we parents supply the moral discussion. I don't see how this leaves them worse off than if the school had left them without the facts.

Dd has had a whole programme of sex education already and I can see no problem with either the teaching or the effect on dd and her friends.

When they are small, they get taught about how to keep themselves safe (don't go with a stranger, your body is your own etc). This has not led dd, or any other child I know, to an obsessive interest in sex; it's just another safety rule, like traffic lights, to (hopefully) be remembered should they ever need it. It might have saved the friend I mentioned in a previous post.

A litte later, they get taught the facts of human biology, with no suggestion that this is something they should be doing as children.

Then they get taught about the potential dangers of sex: STDs, teenage pregnancy etc. This is hardly the same as telling them that they should be out doing it. Dd was also taught about drugs, again not in the context of encouraging them.

I have never heard anything in SRE either in this country or in Scandinavia to suggest that they are encouraging early sex: if anything, they are making the dangers of early sex very clear. Extra morals discussions we then have at home. Dd is better off because she is getting it from two angles.

In the same way, she learns about
racial discrimination as a subject at school, and then we discuss the issues at home.

You have a lot of faith in the school system evidently. You are again arguing from a 'past' perspective. How old is you daughter? My kids are 4 and 3 - these proposala are going to directly affect them.Note the OP - I was not referring to sex ed in the past - but that which is planned for the future - from age 5.

People argue that the mere presence of a sex health clinic in a school grounds gives out the message that school kids will be engaging in sex. it is normalising it - making it the norm.
Again let's see if Doodle can provide us with the proposals sent to her school. That will help us to stop speculating about teh content - but yu will see - her school tossed the proposals out and she also says why.

My dd is 12, so she had a big chunk of SRE last year. My son is 8 so currently in primary school. My nephews are 5, 7 and 11.
I would think the same if my children were younger.

I do have a fair amount of faith in the school system, but not so much that I am not able to point out to my children if I disagree with what the teacher says. No problem. I am still the greatest moral influence on my children.

"People argue that the mere presence of a sex health clinic in a school grounds gives out the message that school kids will be engaging in sex. "

They may argue it, doesn't necessarily make it right. Besides, a 12-year-old is old enough to read the papers, they know teenage pregnancy is a problem in this country and conequently that there must be a fair few teenagers having sex. And their mates will tell them so. It is impossible to keep the idea of teenage sex as something that happens out of young teenagers' minds simply because they talk to each other. Doesn't mean they have come to the conclusion that having sex would be a good thing for them to do. In dd's case quite the contrary.

You say "I would think the same if my children were younger" but you haven't heard waht they are going to teach yet?
Was your daughter taught about intimate touching and molestation at 5, 6 and 7? did she read literature depicting 2 men in bed together? (Daddy's Rommate)

i think you are choosing to ignore what doodletou said about the proposals. She has SEEN it and her school said NO!