Pay Attention

I don't mean to scare you but there is something you should know. Pay attention now.

Kids know about sex younger and younger every year.

Kids as young as 10 years old are participating in sexual acts such as oral sex.

The information these kids may have could be incorrect, putting them at risk for STDs as well as emotional distress. We need to educate and prepare our children so they have a better chance at making the right decisions. Ignoring the facts or trying to protect them only makes things worse.

For example, from Canoe:

Questions raised about modern sex-ed

FREDERICTON (CP) -- A new sex education program in New Brunswick, which includes such topics as masturbation, orgasm and oral sex, has raised new questions about the place of the birds and the bees in the modern classroom.

A growing number of parents are demanding removal of the new curriculum.

Talking about these subjects is important. Ignoring them is dangerous.

"This curriculum is an assault on the children of New Brunswick," says Dr. Carolyn Barry, a physician in the Fredericton area and mother of six children.

"Children are 10 and 11 when they start this program in Grade 6, and they are being presented with concepts of oral sex, mutual masturbation, anal sex, oral-anal sex. It absolutely contravenes our community standards."

In Grade 6 kids are already starting to experiment. They should be prepared with information so they know the consequences of what they are doing.

Barry and other parents who have expressed their outrage at public meetings around the province say the new sex-ed curriculum will create a more sexually permissive, anything-goes society.

"It will change the culture of New Brunswick," she says.

Cultures change all the time, and our society creates a sexually permissive, anything-goes atmosphere. Watch TV lately? Kids need to know the facts to go along with the visual and audio suggestiveness.

Some parents say they want a program that talks more about abstinence.

Maybe these parents should talk more about abstinence at home with their kids. Schools teach information, parents and families should teach morals.

Also, concerns were raised about the adequacy of sex-ed programs in Prince Edward Island schools following the recent trial of a male high school athlete who was given oral sex by 12- and 13-year-old girls.

The trial revealed the girls were part of a group of middle school students who routinely performed oral sex on high school boys, most of them elite athletes.

"It's everywhere," one of the girls testified in court. "It's not really a big deal. It's just casual."

Sandra Byers, chairwoman of the Psychology Department at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, says incidents like the child oral sex ring in P.E.I. should set off alarms in schools and homes.

She says children in Grades 6, 7 and 8 are not only talking about sex, they're starting to experiment.

"We do not have a choice between kids having no information and correct information," she says. "The choice is between them having incorrect information and correct information."

Byers says the programs have to be explicit and detailed, or kids will think activities like oral sex and anal sex do not meet the criteria for "real sex."

"If we are not explicit about those behaviours, I fear that students will make the assumption there is no risk with those behaviours," Byers says.

Emphasis mine. Our children are not growing up in the world we grew up in. Wake up and smell the coffee people, and make sure your children are prepared and equipped to make the right choices.