Teaching about Puberty

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My Catholic grammar school didn’t touch puberty or sex ed at all. My Catholic high school did as part of a mandatory health class, but even then it depended on what teacher you got. One would teach it but the other skipped those chapters.

My upbringing was so sheltered, I didn’t learn what sex was until I was 12 or 13 and asked my mother how sperm from the man got to the egg inside a woman. She tried to evade the question, but her nervous laugh told me something was up and I was relentless until I got the truth out of her. Later, I asked her when she did plan on informing me of these things. She said she thought sixteen was a good age for The Talk.

My brother found out shortly after, when we were at Wal-Mart with dad and he saw a graphic drawing in the men’s room. My dad, who finds the mere mention of such things humiliating, couldn’t bear the thought of waiting until we got home for The Talk - he just wanted to get it over with. So he sent me away and took my brother to a quiet aisle. Yep, my brother had The Talk in Wal-Mart. It didn’t exactly encourage him to ask questions, he learned to depend on his friends for that.

Obviously, I would handle a lot of this differently. Much earlier than my mom, much more privately and comfortably than my dad. But my point is, even the best-meaning parents - and I will say, my parents are wonderful people - don’t always know the best way to handle this. In those situations, conversation at school becomes important.
 
Nanette1281 said:
No. She said they will be educated on contraception and other things. I know they had counselors come in for sensitivity training for transgenders. It’s different now than when I learned it in school!
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You would do well to get the syllabus. She’ll be getting all kinds of second-hand reports from her friends. You need to teach her what is both charitable and correct, or she’ll be getting who-knows-what from the rest of the class. As bad as what she might get from even the most progressive school system, the second-hand version would be even worse.

I’d think that coming up with materials of your own would be a better alternative than letting her go through with the training. If it is at all possible, arrange to have an excused absence for her for the classes she’ll miss, rather than having her pointedly sent out of the room. I would think she will appreciate that.
 
lilypadrees said:
Subjects like this should be taught in the home by the child’s parents not in the schools.
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That would be great, but my mother had a classmate who literally got pregnant without knowing how one got pregnant. Young people who do not understand the basic facts of life can be very vulnerable to those out prowling for the naive. (That is what happened to this classmate of my mother’s; it was not a young man her own age, but an older sexual predator who got her pregnant.)
 
PetraG said:
If it is at all possible, arrange to have an excused absence for her for the classes she’ll miss, rather than having her pointedly sent out of the room. I would think she will appreciate that.
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Here in lies the problem, though. All of her classmates will be attending and sharing every nugget they learn with her. Except it will have 5th grader spin on it with tons of misunderstanding mixed in. Far better to let her attend, hear it from the teacher directly, and then have a values-based discussion with Mom with regards to what she heard. After all, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when trying to raise kids anyway. Allow them to live in the world but counsel them with regards to value systems and moral beliefs.
 
That’s up to the parents to decide. Many parents prefer to discuss such personal matters with their children and use books as an aid in explaining things. It isn’t up to the school system to do the parents’ job. It is the responsibility of the parents.
 
lilypadrees said:
That’s up to the parents to decide. Many parents prefer to discuss such personal matters with their children…
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Parents can be awful at their jobs. My school gave us a consent form for sex ed classes and parents can choose to opt out if they plan on teaching their kids. I was shocked to hear that this isn’t the norm in a lot of schools.
 
That’s why there are books they can give their children. Parents who are uncomfortable discussing it can find books geared for the child’s age and level of understanding. I wouldn’t allow a teacher to teach my children sex ed. That is the job of the parents not the schools.

Glad there is an “Opt Out” feature. That wasn’t available when they started teaching it in the schools here. And I remember the outcry. None of the parents wanted the schools teaching it.
 
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lilypadrees said:
That’s why there are books they can give their children
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No I mean they actually don’t bother. My parents never attempted to teach me about sex, they didn’t bother finding books or anything. They didn’t even know what I was taught in sex ed (I only found out contraception was wrong when I joined CAF!). Many (older) parents here also don’t bother because sex is a very ‘taboo’ subject that you find out by chance or when you get married.

So I think sex ed in schools is a good idea in theory (I say this because unfortunately they’re teaching kids nonsense these days) but they must include an opt out option imo. Parents should have the freedom to decide what’s best for their child.

I don’t like how sex ed has evolved from teaching about puberty and sex/stds to teaching kids about how it’s okay to masturbate/experiment or watch porn. It’s not the case here (from what I remember, we were taught about the physical changes, about infatuation vs love, stds, how to say no, marriage and condoms) but from what I see online, it seems some schools are doing it? Or at least there are people trying to push for it?
 
My husband and I were watching a young boy singing on live TV, I said “Hey wouldn’t it be awful if his voice broke live on TV”, (except I put it a little more graphically 😳). My husband just got annoyed and said for goodness sake it doesn’t really happen like that.
 
lilypadrees said:
That’s why there are books they can give their children. Parents who are uncomfortable discussing it can find books geared for the child’s age and level of understanding. I wouldn’t allow a teacher to teach my children sex ed. That is the job of the parents not the schools.

Glad there is an “Opt Out” feature. That wasn’t available when they started teaching it in the schools here. And I remember the outcry. None of the parents wanted the schools teaching it.
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Feeding children is not the job of schools either, but you’d be shocked at the number of parents capable of feeding their children who will send their children to school without food because they know that either the government–or even the teacher–will not let that child starve.

That doesn’t even begin to cover other things…like clothing…where parents will neglect wether-appropriate clothing. And, again, I’m not talking about parents who can’t afford, but parents who choose not to.

Same goes for classroom supplies. Too many parents would rather smoke, drink, buy video games, etc than buy a pack of pencils for their kid. Talk to a public school teacher for a half hour and you’ll realize that parents who actually parent are in the minority.

Parents who are doing their job should be able to have an opt-out. However, it doesn’t change the reality that teachers face when parents fail.

I totally agree. Teachers should NOT be put in this position…yet they constantly are. That’s not something “good” parents can change. “Good” parents can simply do their jobs and ensure their children are not a burdan to the teachers.
 
QwertyGirl said:
Here in lies the problem, though. All of her classmates will be attending and sharing every nugget they learn with her. Except it will have 5th grader spin on it with tons of misunderstanding mixed in. Far better to let her attend, hear it from the teacher directly, and then have a values-based discussion with Mom with regards to what she heard. After all, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when trying to raise kids anyway. Allow them to live in the world but counsel them with regards to value systems and moral beliefs.
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Or they may say, “You’re lucky you got out of it. It was totally gross.”
 
When I was that age I swear 90% of our conversations was sex and bodies and not all of it medically accurate. If they go to school there will always be this talk.
 
QwertyGirl said:
Possible but not probable. Have you spent time with fifth graders lately? 😲
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I expect there would be a wide range of “reports.”

There are plenty of teachers I do not think are qualified to be sexual educators at all, let alone for a Catholic 5th grader. (That includes a good many Catholic educators; I have heard horror stories even in parish schools.)
 
It might help but I think kids are always going to get curious and start speculating on this area when they come together.
 
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