JESSICA HEWITT: Sex education for children? | News

Educating children, adolescents and teenagers about sex, puberty, sexuality and/or sexuality orientation can be a controversial topic. There are those who oppose public sex education and insist parents handle the matter. There are those who don’t mind public sex education for teenagers but not younger kids. There are those who want public sex education for kids at all ages.

Sex is a difficult topic because it brings us three big issues: parental rights, religious views and individual morals. All three are very hot button topics. I’m going to explore age-appropriate sex education from a therapeutic point of view. I am not going to say who should provide sex education, just that sex education is a really good idea and that keeping it age appropriate is possible.

In therapy, one of our ethical core values is autonomy. Autonomy, to therapists, means clients are people and they have a right to make decisions about their lives. We do our best to ensure our clients have as much autonomy as is legally and ethically possible. Clients who are minors or are deemed incompetent by a doctor or the courts are still given as much autonomy as possible within the scope of their specific case and their age. For clients to make quality decisions, they need quality information. This is why it is legally and ethically obligated for all therapists to provide informed consent for treatment. Informed consent is a paper document we review verbally with clients that provides a lot of information. It helps clients be informed enough to make a good, informed decision about their care. Informed consent is valuable across a range of life topics. I advocate for informed consent for basically everything: car buying, real estate, medical care, legal issues, school systems etc. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone sit you down first and tell you who they are, what they do, how they do it, how it works, what else you can try, how much it will cost, what the benefits and risks are, and how you can get support if you have a complaint, question or concern? I think so. That’s what is at the heart of age-appropriate sex education. Informing minors of age-appropriate information so they understand, know what’s normal or not and can make good, informed decisions.

Age-appropriate sex education provides information based on age. Each year of life up until about 25, we are developing physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually. So, the information provided is what is pertinent to that age to help children understand their own bodies and more about being human. For example, it is age appropriate to explain to a toddler (2-3 years of age) that there are men and women; that moms and dads have some different body parts. Naming the differing body parts is also appropriate and I recommend teaching kids the technical term for both male and female parts. It’s hard for a child to explain to a safe adult outside the family about potential abuse or a genital problem if they use family pet names for those parts. Once children start school, it’s age appropriate to explain every family is different. Some families have just a mom or just a dad. Some families have two moms or two dads. This is something children will begin to notice in conversation and pickup at school. Starting about 10 (average onset of puberty), it begins to be age appropriate to explain what puberty is, how it begins, what changes to expect to the body. Further into puberty, it is appropriate to begin to explain sex. And the older minors become, the more detail may be needed to help them understand their bodies, sexuality, orientation, commonly spoken about social issues, etc.

Lastly, research shows across the board that quality sex education reduces rates of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases/infections. From my own professional experience, those clients who have quality sex education (especially with adults they feel safe talking to/asking questions) are more confident in themselves and are more likely to abstain for a longer period of time. They feel good in choosing to wait because they know so much. They see the risks and are OK with waiting until really ready.

JESSICA HEWITT, a national certified counselor and licensed professional counselor in West Virginia with 12 years of clinical experience, has a masters of education in counseling and human development. This column is not intended to diagnose or treat any issue. It is intended only for enjoyment.