Growing up in the average African home, it felt like a taboo to speak about sex and related topics. This was due to a lot of factors, including purity culture and the false sense of protection of children, especially girls.
Many parents assumed that their kids were way too young to know anything about sex until adulthood, while the super religious ones believed that ignorance would stop children from developing any interest in it.
All these are part of the reasons most of us found it difficult to talk about sex as teenagers. We considered it a restricted topic, and when we became adults, this mindset stayed with us. We didn’t become any different; rather, we remained individuals who were shy to have conversations surrounding sex.
The refusal of parents to teach their children sexual education is also the reason many kids grew up describing sex and their body parts in a rather awkward way. They coined weird names for anything sex-related, even down to menstrual health, and all of it is deeply rooted in shame. This truly made a lot of children scared to confide in their parents. For instance, it was almost impossible to find a young girl who had been molested speaking up to parents who had already raised her to feel ashamed of talking about sex-related words or experiences.
Even now, you can tell how much shame people feel when speaking about sex, reproductive health, their sexuality, and their feelings, but none of these things qualifies as something we should be ashamed of. In fact, sexual education is an important aspect of life that every parent needs to pay attention to because it is one of the things that helps raise a well-rounded adult.
Kids are naturally curious, so it is every parent’s duty to ensure that they teach their children how to identify their body parts, understand their feelings, and recognize any sexual behaviour that feels harmful. Their questions should not be dismissed but rather attended to with empathy and care for their future. And when children are unusually silent about what goes on with them, it’s important to start conversations to help figure out if anything is wrong.
Ask them how they feel about their bodies, if anyone touched them at school, made advances towards them, or made fun of their body parts. Also, convince them to report any strange behaviour to you and assure them that you will believe them and handle things appropriately.
This is how you build trust with children so that when anything inappropriate happens, they feel comfortable sharing it with you.
I believe this education should start as early as possible, especially when they are in elementary school. The American Academy of Pediatrics already recommends that sex education should start as early as five or six years old. I support it because parents shouldn't risk their kids having to learn about sex from a total stranger.
Sexual education should also not be taught using crude words because children are still children at the end of the day, and if we must do it, we should use appropriate language while teaching them.
They should also be taught to ask questions during confusing moments. For example, if an adult asks a child to pull down their pants, they should be able to ask why because their parents have taught them to do so. That is the foundation I am talking about; learning to question things because that’s the best way to understand what’s going on.
I strongly believe that the best way to teach children about sexual education is to move away from purity culture that focuses heavily on fear and abstinence. Instead, parents and teachers should focus on teaching children about autonomy, telling them that they own their bodies and that no one has the right to touch them inappropriately or coerce them into doing anything that doesn’t feel right to them. They should also be allowed to read books with biological facts and be taught about safe sex practices and inclusion.
All of these will help them create healthy boundaries and eventually make informed sexual decisions that won’t jeopardize their future. I hope that the present generation of parents will take a cue from the various sexual crimes and pedophilic activities going on in the world and make it their priority to protect their children through the right and timely teachings of sexual education.
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