Every June for the past few years, I, together with another physician Mum have been covering the "puberty and sex education" talk at our children's Catholic School.
It goes like this: the Grade 5, 6 and 7 boys get together with a physician father and the girls get together with Dr. Mezey and I. The teachers play a 20 minute ancient video with, who I am pretty sure, are some of the child actors on Barney, that describes the changes girls experience in puberty. Then they get to see the boys puberty video too and viceversa for the boys, they get to see the girls video.
Afterwards, both groups, still separately (separate rooms), get the opportunity to ask questions. This is done annonymously, the children write their question on a little piece of paper and it goes into a box and in the boys group their physican Dad reads and answers them out loud. In the girls group Dr. M and I do the same. For the boys this is a "bum deal" or so I heard from Sebastian every year because the physician/Dad covers the information on puberty and puberty ONLY ie. he will not answer any other questions unless they pertain to puberty and if a sex question is asked his answer is "you need to discuss that with your parents". Meanwhile Dr. M and I answer ALL questions, ALL OF THEM!
Sex discussions at our house are a free for all access to information session. A few years ago I bought a book at one of the developmental conferences I attended that dealt with sexual education for boys called "What is going on down there?" I strategically left the book in the car and when the boys found it and asked about it I said I bought it for my patients. OF COURSE they read it! and that led to a few extra questions they hadn't previously asked so they know pretty much everything there is to know. Imagine my son's frustration at the June school sessions as he sits there and respectfully listens but cannot ask the really important questions. He does find it funny though, after one of these sessions Sebastian came home laughing because one of the boys had asked if Viagra was a Pokemon.
Last year the boys had their session before the girls and again I heard the same complaint: "We cannot ask questions about sex". But one of the questions pulled out of the boys annonymous box was "Can humans have sex with animals?" Which of course was read but not answered.
The same question came up at the girls session, obviously this was a hot topic of conversation at the playground and needed to be addressed, so Dr. M and I did. Our answer: "Yes, humans can have sex with animals but it is not correct to do it and considered a sexual disorder." Simple, short and to the point answer. This was followed by a raised hand question ie. not an annonymous question "Is is considered animal abuse". THAT WAS THE CONCERN???!!! Not the seedy horrible thoughts adults adscribed to this question but the simple child concern: "Is it considered animal abuse?" Our answer "YES! IT IS". Adult lesson learned and in one fell sweep, all the playground speculation put to rest.
June is coming up. This is Benjamin's first year of "sex education". Those of you who know him know that he is probably one of the best sex informed children there are so I doubt he will learn anything new. We also have a new principal so who knows if she will ask Dr. M and I to do the honors again but be assured (and I think I speak for Dr. M too) we will continue to answer ALL questions.
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