What IS appropriate in a Kindergarten sex ed program? (beliefs, homosexual)

[jonny]

The sex ed for kindergarteners thread had a crappy poll. Sorry about that. I take responsibility & am restarting this thread in hopes that we can have a real conversation.

The Siecus Sex Ed program, which is supported by UUs and Obama's Church of Christ through their Our Whole Lives sex ed program, gives lists the following as recommended teachings for the first level of the program (Ages 5-8). It does not really go into details on what should be taught when - only that it should be taught by the time the child turns 9 in order to prepare them for future sex ed classes.

These are the guidelines for Level 1 directly from the manual:

Concept 1: Human Development
Topic 1: Reproductive and Sexual Anatomy and Physiology
• Each body part has a correct name and a specific function.
• A person’s genitals, reproductive organs, and genes determine whether the person is male or female.
• A boy/man has nipples, a penis, a scrotum, and testicles.
• A girl/woman has breasts, nipples, a vulva, a clitoris, a vagina, a uterus, and ovaries.
• Some sexual or reproductive organs, such as penises and vulvas, are external or on the outside of the body while others, such as ovaries and testicles, are internal or inside the body.
• Both boys and girls have body parts that feel good when touched.

Topic 2: Puberty
• Bodies change as children grow older.
• Puberty is a time of physical and emotional change that happens as children become teenagers.
• People are able to have children only after they have reached puberty.

Topic 3: Reproduction
Men and women have reproductive organs that enable them to have a child.
• Men and women have specific cells in their bodies (sperm cells and egg cells) that enable them to reproduce.
• Reproduction requires that a sperm and egg join.
• Vaginal intercourse – when a penis is placed inside a vagina – is the most common way for a sperm and egg to join.
• When a woman is pregnant, the fetus grows inside her body in her uterus.
• A woman can be pregnant with more than one fetus at a time.
• Babies usually come out of a woman’s body through an opening called a vagina.
• Some babies are born by an operation called a Caesarian Section.
• A woman’s breasts can provide milk for a baby.
• Not all men and women have children.
• People who cannot have children may choose to adopt.

Topic 4: Body Image
• Individual bodies are different sizes, shapes, and colors.
• All bodies are equally special, including those that are disabled.
• Differences make us unique.
• Good health habits, such as eating well and exercising, can improve the way a person feels about his or her body.
• Each person can be proud of his/her body.

Topic 5: Sexual Orientation
• Human beings can love people of the same gender and people of another gender.
• Some people are heterosexual, which means they can be attracted to and fall in love with someone of another gender.
• Some people are homosexual, which means they can be attracted to and fall in love with someone of the same gender.
• Homosexual men and women are also known as gay men and lesbians.
• People deserve respect regardless of who they are attracted to.
• Making fun of people by calling them gay (e.g. “homo,” “fag,” “queer”) is disrespectful and hurtful.

Key Concept 2: Relationships
Topic 1: Families
• A family consists of two or more people who care for each other in many ways.
• There are different kinds of families.
• Children may live with one or more parents or caregivers including biological parents, step-parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, grandparents, friends, or other combinations of adults.
• All members of a family may not live in the same place.
• The makeup of individual families may change over time.
• Each member of a family has something unique to contribute.
• Families have rules to help members live together.
• Family members take care of each other.
• Many adults may help care for children.
• Family members show love for each other.
• Change in a family may make its members happy or sad.
• When a baby is born or a child is adopted into a family, some parts of life will change for family members.

Topic 2: Friendship
• People can have many friends or just a few.
• A person can have different types of friends.
• Friends spend time together and get to know each other.
• Friendships depend on honesty.
• Friends respect and appreciate each other.
• Friends can feel angry with each other and still be friends.
• Friends sometimes hurt each other’s feelings.
• Friends forgive each other.
• Friends share feelings with each other.
• Friends can help each other.
• Friends can be male and female.
• Friends can be younger and older.

Topic 3: Love
• Love means having deep and warm feelings about oneself and others.
• People can experience different types of love.
• People express love differently to their parents, families, and friends.
• People can experience different loving relationships throughout their lives.

Topic 4: Romantic Relationships and Dating
• Dating is when two people who are romantically attracted to each other spend their free time together.
• When children become teenagers, they spend more time with their friends and may begin to date.
• Some adults, including single parents, may date.

Topic 5: Marriage and Lifetime Commitments
• Two people may decide to marry or make a lifetime commitment to each other because they love each other and want to share their lives with each other.
• Many men and women will marry.
• Many people live in lifetime committed relationships, even though they may not be legally married.
• Two people of the same gender can live in loving, lifetime committed relationships.
• Most people who marry intend the relationship to be lifelong.
• People who are married or committed to each other may get divorced or break up if they decide they do not want to be together anymore.
• When parents divorce or break up, children may live with one or both parents or with other family members.
• Divorce and break-ups are usually difficult for families.
• After a divorce or break-up, parents and children continue their lives in new ways and can be happy again.
• Children are not able to get their separated or divorced parents back together regardless of how much they want that to happen.
• Children are not to blame for their parents’ separations or divorces.

Topic 6: Raising Children
• Many people want to be parents.
• Raising children is an adult role.
• Raising children requires great effort, resources, time, and patience.
• People who have children need to provide for them.
• Raising children can be a wonderful experience.
• Adults become parents in several ways: having biological children, adopting children, becoming a step-parent, or becoming a guardian or foster parent.
• People who have or adopt children are responsible for loving and taking care of them.
• Parents who adopt, love their children as much as biological parents love theirs.

[jonny]

Key Concept 3: Personal Skills
Topic 1: Values
• Values are strong feelings or beliefs about important issues.
• Individuals and families have a variety of values.
• Children learn most of their values from parents, other family members, community, cultural and religious teachings, and their peers.

Topic 2: Decision-making
• Everybody has to make decisions.
• Small children make many decisions, such as what clothes to wear, which toys to play with, or who to be friends with.
• Children need help from adults to make some decisions.
• All decisions have consequences, positive and/or negative.
• Decision-making is a skill that can be improved.

Topic 3: Communication
• People communicate in many ways.
• People speak, write, sign, or show how they feel with facial expressions and body language.
• Communication is necessary in human relationships.

Topic 4: Assertiveness
• Everyone, including children, has rights.
• Telling trusted people about one’s feeling and needs is acceptable.
• Asking is often the first step to getting what one wants or needs.
• Children sometimes have to do things they do not want to do because their parents or other adults say so.

Topic 5: Negotiation
• Negotiation requires give and take on the part of all people involved.
• Good negotiation can enhance relationships and friendships.
• Sharing is a type of negotiation.

Topic 6: Looking for Help
• Family members and friends usually try to help one another.
• If parents cannot help, one can ask another family member, a teacher, religious leader, guidance counselor, a friend’s parent, or another trusted adult.

Key Topic 4: Sexual Behavior
Topic 1: Sexuality Throughout Life
• Most children are curious about their bodies.
• Bodies can feel good when touched.

Topic 2: Masturbation
• Touching and rubbing one’s own genitals to feel good is called masturbation.
• Some boys and girls masturbate and others do not.
• Masturbation should be done in a private place.

Topic 3: Shared Sexual Behavior
• People often kiss, hug, touch, and engage in other sexual behaviors with one another to show caring and to feel good.

Topic 5: Human Sexual Response
• Both girls and boys may discover that their bodies feel good when touched.

Key Concept 5: Sexual Health
Topic 1: Reproductive Health
• Girls and boys need to take care of their bodies during childhood and adolescence.
• Like other body parts, the genitals need care.

Topic 2: Contraception
• Some people have children and others do not.
• Each family can decide how many children to have, if any.

Topic 3: Pregnancy and Prenatal Care
• A pregnant woman must take extra care of her health with exercise, healthy foods, and frequent visits to her healthcare provider.
• Most babies are born healthy.
• Smoking, drinking alcohol, and using other drugs can hurt a fetus before it is born.

Topic 4: Abortion
• Sometimes women become pregnant when they do not want to be or are unable to care for a child.

Topic 5: Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• Sexually transmitted diseases are caused by germs such as bacteria and viruses.
• There are many types of sexually transmitted diseases.
• People who do not engage in certain behaviors do not get STDs.
• A small number of children are born with STDs that they get from their mothers during pregnancy or birth.
• The most common ways for a person to get an STD is to participate in sexual behavior or share a needle with another person who is already infected with an STD.
• Children who find needles on the ground should not touch them and should tell an adult.

Topic 6: HIV and AIDS
• HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
• Once a person gets HIV, he/she will have it for the rest of his/her life.
• HIV causes AIDS, which stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
• People who have HIV or AIDS are more at risk of getting infections, diseases, and other illnesses.
• People with HIV who work hard to stay healthy can live for a very long time.
• There are medicines that people with HIV or AIDS can take to help them stay healthier and live longer.
• People who do not engage in certain behaviors do not get HIV or AIDS.
• A small number of children are born with HIV that they get from their mothers during pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding,
• The most common ways for a person to get HIV is to participate in sexual behavior or share a needle with another person who is already infected with HIV.
• A person cannot become infected with HIV by being around, touching, or hugging someone who has HIV or AIDS.
• HIV is found in the blood of infected people; it is never a good idea to touch another person’s blood.
• Children who find needles on the ground should not touch them and should tell an adult.

Topic 7: Sexual Abuse, Assault, Violence, and Harassment
• One’s body belongs to oneself.
• There are parts of one’s body that are considered to be private, including one’s mouth, nipples, breasts, chest, penis, scrotum, vagina, vulva, and buttocks.
• No one should touch the private parts of a child’s body except for health reasons or to clean them.
• Children should not touch the private parts of other people’s bodies.
• Child sexual abuse is when someone touches the private parts of a child’s body without a health or hygiene reason.
• Sexual abuse can also occur when someone asks a child to touch the private parts of his/her body.
• Both boys/men and girls/women can be sexually abused.
• Everyone, including children, has the right to tell others not to touch their body when they do not want to be touched.
• If a child experiences unwanted or uncomfortable touching, he/she should tell a trusted adult, even if he/she was told to keep it a secret.
• Children can be sexually abused by a stranger or by someone they know.
• A child is never at fault if a person – even a family member – touches him/her in a way that is wrong or uncomfortable.
• If a stranger tries to get a child to go with him/her, the child should run and tell a parent, teacher, neighbor, or other adult.
• Most people would never abuse children.

Key Concept 6: Society and Culture
Topic 2: Gender Roles
• Girls and boys have many similarities and a few differences.
• Some people may expect or demand that boys and girls behave in certain ways, but this is beginning to change.
• Both women and men can be involved and caring parents.
• Boys and girls can do the same chores at home.
• Men and women are capable of doing almost all the same jobs.
• Some men and women may be told that certain jobs and tasks are only for women or only for men, but this is beginning to change.

Topic 4: Sexuality and Religion
• Some families go to a church, mosque, or synagogue to worship; some families do not.
• Religions teach people how to love each other, how to behave, and what is right and wrong.
• Different religions may promote similar or different values.

Topic 5: Diversity
• Individuals differ in the way they think, act, look, and live.
• Talking about differences helps people understand each other better.
• The belief that all members of a group will behave the same way is called a stereotype.
• Stereotypes can hurt people.
• All people should receive fair and equal treatment.
• People who are different are often treated negatively or unequally, which is unfair.

Topic 6: Sexuality and the Media
• Some information on television, in the movies, in books and magazines, on the radio, and on the Internet is true and some is not.
• Some commercials, television shows, movies, and magazines make people and things look different or better than they really are.
• Some television programs, movies, and websites are not appropriate for young children.

Here is the complete publication: http://www.siecus.com/pubs/guidelines/guidelines.pdf

[lunamoth]

Those make good sense to me. I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. I talk about many of those things on a regular basis with them, mostly because the 7-year asks questions and the littler one is around. But the four-year-old obviously understands less than her bigger sister.

I hope that by 9 they both have all that good info under their belts. I think it would be good to have the same messages reinforced at school.

[Sola'lor]

I'll post what I said in the other thread. ...I just know that Sex Ed is unimportant for Children as young as that. I can understand Sex Ed when they start the whole puberty thing. But for young children the procreative or intimate use of their genitals should be the last thing they are concerned about.

I can understand if parents want to teach their children about this sooner and that is ok. That is the parents responsibility. But schools should teach this until puberty age. It is irrelevant to young children until they reach that age. Schools should teach it at that age that way thos eparent who want to teach it sooner can do so and those who wish to teach it later can do so without school interference.

[Buttercup]

Seems about right to me, jonny. I can imagine some giggling and uneasy silence when some of this is talked about but I don't feel it's over the line at all.

What do you think? What parts bother you?

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by jonny

I can't get the damn poll right. It was supposed to be multiple choice. This thread is pointless now, so could a mod just go ahead and delete it? I give up.

A mod could probably change your poll to multi choice Jonny. Worth asking before deleting all your work.

[Ðanisty]

Jonny, if you want to create a new thread with a new poll, I can move these posts over there. Just send me a PM with a link to the new thread and I'll move it for you.

[Kungfuzed]

I think the things listed in the OP are much healthier for a 5 to 8 year old to learn than the alternative - that any talk of sex is taboo, be ashamed of nudity, feel guilty for and repress any sexual desires, touching yourself is dirty and wrong, and that having sex before marriage is a sin next to murder. I doubt that's the typical primary sunday school lesson, but that is what they will eventually learn growing up. I think teaching them when they are young would go a long way towards overcomming the stigma of evil dirty sex in our culture. I would endorse the lessons of the OP for my seven year old daughter. Too bad we're not UU.