Part of parental instinct is to protect our young. This is seen all throughout nature in countless species as it goes without saying never to come between a bear and her cub. So if this is so instinctual to humans, it begs the question why some parents fear giving their children accurate tools of knowledge when it comes to sex.
Taking note of Google alerts, one of the key words Connecting the Dots watches is ‘Sex’. The news articles vary from teachers having sex with students, and to be frank the numbers of male and female teachers are identical, to some high profile sex cases or scandals. But time to time a news article pops up about sex education being lack of, or someone up in arms because their children are about to understand about sex without any political correctness or religious oversight. All the real words like penis, vagina, intercourse, orgasm, oral sex, anal sex will all be discussed.
One of the most recurring stories is complaints that if left to religion, sex education would be about abstinence and not a word about the proper use of a contraceptives or personal hygiene before, during and after sex. There would be fictional stories about the unmarried girl having sex and getting pregnant all designed to scare children away from having sex by implying it is bad and even sinful despite it being central to the purpose of life being to procreate.
One of the fears some parents have is if their children know about sex, they will seek it out and experiment. However the truth of the matter is that will happen with or without proper sex education as that is what nature has programmed every species to do. So some parents think that by withholding this critical knowledge their children will not have sex, and that is one of the core issues of this topic. So what that amounts to is having your children walk through a mine field without a map of where the mines are.
Much of the problem about sex education that is not sex education comes from political correctness as well. As political correctness is all about creating a world that has nothing to do with the trials and truth of the real world, some people are so brainwashed by political correctness they seem to think it will impact inherent sexual desires and behavior of the sexually mature but not sexually educated. In reality common sense says something totally different to the people who understand nature.
Political correctness has also made it more uncomfortable for a parent to sit down with their child and have the classic vague “Birds and Bees” talk that may last all of 20 minutes. This has left some parents seeking third party help from counselors and therapist who are experts in the field of sex and sexuality. After all if the schools are not doing it, and parents are shy to do it, this is the only remaining proper option.
Another point to consider that people are not only becoming sexually active at a younger age, they are entering puberty at a younger age as well. According to researchers the amount of inherent stress a young person is exposed to dictates when puberty starts. If stress is low, puberty starts early. If stress is high, puberty starts later. This is tied to the reproductive cycle because as sex is all about making babies, as far as nature is concerned if there is low levels of stress, more mouths to feed can be accommodated. So seeing a fully developed 14 year old is more of the norm than the exception. Going back to 1940, what is now seen at 14 was not seen until 16 or 17. Children entering puberty at 9 and having significant sexual desires by 11 or 12 is common now. So waiting to have sex education when they get to be 15 is like missing a train by an hour or more.
As for deciding when is the right time to educate children about sex, it all comes down to the observant parent. As soon as children activities are replaced with precursor activities that have the most remote hint of sex like self-grooming designed to attract a partner and more, that is truly the best time to catch that sex education train.
