Sex ED for the future

I frequently catch headlines about school districts debating with parents about comprehensive sexual health and wellness; why it should be taught, how much should be taught, how much information is too much information, etc. So upon reading some of my local headlines I called upon the child, the thirteen year old boy, who is currently taking an online courses.

When "Sexual Health and HIV Prevention" popped up for him to take, I didn't even think twice. I didn't even look through the lessons, I said yes, please go through this and if you have questions just come ask me!

So we've been going like that for a couple weeks now and he's been great!

Well upon seeing the local news headlines I took a step back, I realized, wait this is exactly what my child is learning, this is the stuff school districts are arguing with parents about?

So I did what a parent should do, I approached my teen son and said, "we need to have a chat." Of course fear crossed his face and I laughed, calm down kid you aren't in trouble.

Well I went ahead and explained what was going on and that mom's brain got ticking quite fast:

I know you are currently taking this sex ED and HIV prevention class, do you feel like you are learning anything that you didn't already know?

No, I feel like I already know most of this stuff, it's just more detailed about relationships and stuff right now.

How do you know this stuff already?

It's stuff that I see in movies, relationships, and then stuff that people talked about in elementary school. I dunno, just a lot of stuff on YouTube, TikTok (when I had it), or on Discord. Even playing games mom, people talk about pretty much everything. It's everywhere on social media, even if I don't have much of social media.

You said playing games, like video games? Which games?

You know I play COD now, but even in Minecraft sometimes people might swear in the mini games, or be listening to loud music that has bad language, Fortnite is super toxic in a different way, but you know that.

(HA! Yeah I know that why do you think I don't play random fill).

So basically kids are exposed way before sex ED even starts?

It's in music and movies and videos, all the music that parents listen too mom, I mean a lot of it isn't even clean. You see LITTLE kids in the background of some of those TikToks dances, the songs are usually inappropriate ones. So they listen to what their parents listen too I guess. They dance to stuff they don't even know what the lyrics are, they just move to the music, which is cool if you are into that.

What do you think about school districts waiting until middle school or high school to teach these kids about Sex ED?

It's too late mom, kids were always talking about stuff when I was little. They swear all the time, saying words that they don't even know the meaning too.

How do you feel about them limiting the amount of things they can actually teach you? This has to do with comprehensive sex ed, meaning it's details, details that might be uncomfortable for students and parents to talk about?

I get that it might be uncomfortable for teachers, but there are people that could give presentations or even books for a week that we could go through the lesson. There are a lot of digital resources out there, maybe schools should look at those kind of things. I don't hate learning about it on the computer, I mean I didn't ace it but I did alright and there was some stuff that was new I guess.

**My son is homeschooled currently but per the state comprehensive sex ed is a requirement**

Do you have any questions or anything to add about this? As a teenager, as someone who is currently learning about relationships and sexual education?

Not really, but I feel it was a waste...I know it already, but you are always really open about the conversations so I wasn't awkward about it. I knew I was going to have to learn about it 'officially' sometime in middle school. I just don't get why it's uncomfortable for so many people, it's the same stuff people see in movies and sing in songs or make stupid videos about.

**There you have it folks "Sex ED the Musical" coming soon** ((joke))

So from the mouth of an educated 13 year old, now you know, it's too late folks. These talks need to start early because they are already over exposed thanks to media and their own parents; from movies, music, and an over abundance of TikToks and reels. It is a endless assault from many different angles, it doesn't even matter how well you protect your kids, they are going to get a small seed of information and their mind opens to questions.

So here is the greatest debate:

1) Do you start the conversation early in their lives (either you or their school districts) and educate and inform them?

2) Do you let them start Googling information (who knows what they find if they start the Google search) and be prepared to have the conversation by backtracking everything they have just searched? Or worse, punishing for something they were too embarrassed to come to you (their parent/guardian) to ask about?