I don’t have a lot of time to post these days, but this question above has kicked me out of my comfort zone.
I’ve been rambling to you quite a lot about my tween, haven’t I?
The last days it became clear to me that I need help adapting to my new role:
A Mom to Tween, experiencing lose of control in an ever-changing-fast-technological world, where kids are exposed to info that is difficult even for us grownups to absorb.
Listen to this: There was a lecture in my daughter’s school, by a police figure handling computer crimes.
The tweens were told about a lot of internet crimes, such as this boy who formed a computer games-based relationship with this guy, who raped him when they met for exchanging games.
They met in a public place (a mall), but then they went to the car to get some more games, etc.
My daughter was shocked. She’s growing in a liberal family, gays are a non-issue.
(To all homophobes among my 6200 followers, this is the time to say goodby, without saying goodby. I mean – please just leave).
She came home confused, told me about the lecture and asked: Mommy, this guy, is he gay, or a pedophile? Is there a gay pedophile? Can a pedophile be gay?
Confusing indeed for a 12, she hasn’t really absorbed this sex thing yet.
I am asking you, and not for the first time:
Does it make sense that at 12 they need to be exposed to all this?
Do I sound hysterical? Good, that’s because I am!
I am endlessly torn between my desire to have my children grow with a secure feeling on one hand, and my natural tendency to frighten them 15 times a day so they are careful, careful and more careful. I am so glad they heard this lecture, maybe she will be more careful now.
I am also so sorry she heard this lecture…
This manual that I didn’t get when it was handed out (I was too busy thinking the world is good!) – does it cover explaining 12’s about pedophiles dangers?
Nobody told me that I would become an ever frightened mom. I didn’t know. I’m not prepared for that. Help!
***If you would like to join our community of confused parents (ok, maybe I’m the only confused one) and experts at http://www.parents-space.com, please feel free to mail me at info@parents-space.com with your details. See you there!
Parenting And Stuff 
I do think it is important that young children learn that not everyone is going to treat them well. Maybe no one needs to go into graphic detail because, like you said, some 12 year olds don’t even know what sex is so how do you explain rape and pedophilia without explaining sex. I would not want my child to first hear about sex in a context of violence!
I plan on teaching my children that regardless of what group you belong to, a person can always been good and bad. Since I belong to the mental health community I will be constantly explaining to my children that a person’s behaviour is unique to them, not to the community the belong to (yes,I know there are times when an entire group is bad but that’s like gangs and stuff which is different).
Thats a great point: a-‘no violence related sex topics’ b-not painting’them’ all with same brush’ EXCELLENTLY PUT
Dead on what I was thinking. It’s about delivery and it needs to be tactful for many reasons. Poignant reply.
My first post I did on parent space was “it couldn’t happen to my child”. It was alerting all parents to the fact that 1 in 4 children will be sexually assaulted in some way by the time they are 18. Facts. Parents do need to know this and then educate their children. However just like we all educate our children on the birds and the bees, there are ways of doing it that are effective and child friendly. I think the lecture your daughter received was very inappropriate. I would be most upset if that had been my daughter.
It is a very good article that you published. Please link to it hear, perhaps readers will be interested in learning the facts.
You are most certainly NOT alone. I read the other day that they want to include a lesson on pornography in sex ed classes. I am not a prude and I think children should be educated on sex, healthy sexual realtionships (whether staight or gay) and being safe sexually (which does include making them AWARE of the dangers of the internet, paedophilia and pornography) but they do NOT need to be given or shown such graphic examples.
It really is a messed up world we live in, but as long as we always TRY to explain things to our children the best we can (yep, no manual!) then hopefully we’ll keep them clued up but not traumatized!!
Great post – I have missed reading your stuff 🙂
Here are the links to my two articles on child sexual abuse. I was one of these statistics and I am sure if my family had had access to information it would not have happened to me. http://www.parents-space.com/bullying/it-couldnt-happen-to-my-child-2/ and the second article is http://www.parents-space.com/parenting/mindful-parenting/how-do-i-talk-with-my-child-about-sexual-abuse/
THANK YOU sooo much for writing and sharing these poss–reas them, shared,& followed on twitter. Is there a way to sign up to subscribe to your posts by email: please do!!!
You are most certainly NOT alone. I read recently that they want to start including pornography in sex ed classes…
I am NOT a prude and agree that children should be taught about sex, healthy sexual relationships and sexual safety (including AWARENESS of internet dangers, pornography and paedophilia) BUT they should not be given or shown such graphic examples. Most adults wouldn’t want to see or hear such things, so why expose kids?
It’s a truly messed up world out there but I think as long as we keep talking to our children, guiding them and advising them the best we can (yep, no manual!) then we should be able to educate them without traumatizing them.
Great post – I have missed reading your stuff 🙂
I just want to say, i agree with your comment–however, I lersonally, would request as a parentthe material that will be shared about porn. REASON–i was Married to a Porn Addict. It is an EXTREMELY SERIOUS ISSUE and the numbers would SHOCK you. It tore apart alllll our family members lives, threw my children out of the ONLY home they knew and weve lost EVERYTHING bcuz of it. Obviously including a marriage. The damage it does the addict and wife; severe…is all i can say. If Education is Key–educate them PLEASE! I am sure the school will do it in a tasteful manner. They talk about drugs to kids: porn addiction is worse in my experience –just check it out 1st 😉
I totally agree porn addiction is awful and I’m so sorry to hear of your experience.
We’ve recently been invited to attend my son’s school to look over the material they will be teaching on sex and I hope the same would be true for porn (if they go ahead and include it in the curriculum).
I know how damaging porn and paedophilia can be (I work as a police officer) and that’s why the subject frightens me. But I do agree that awareness is the key. I trust the education system (to an extent!) and hope that they would be careful and tasteful with what they expose kids to… but then I read posts like this one and I feel that perhaps teachers can be unintentionally ‘clumsy’ at times!!
I used to worry about my kids being exposed to material like this but when you have even a cursory glance at the content on television and the promos they show during inapprorpriate timeslots, I’m not sure we can worry too much about anything else. Sadly our capacity to protect our young people from this sort of nightmare has been lost and education/awareness is about all that’s left. That makes it no less disheartening.
The truth is that the statistics are incredibly high and very frightening. Our kids are growing up in a virtual world that they believe to be innocent and unfortunately it is the perfect place for pedophiles to prey upon their victims.
I think that there should be more education to parents, caregivers and professionals on ways to help protect our kids. Sometimes we are still learning about technology ourselves where the new generation is almost programmed to “get it” immediately. We need to be three steps ahead of them.
I do think that kids should be educated on this as well, but I can see where many of them are confused. The follow up with talking to them about it after is very helpful; it is so important to keep communication strong at this age. Unfortunately, many families begin to have a breakdown in communication at this age.
so tough – i also wish they could live in the bubble i put around them, but at that age, they’re so much more independent and the world is a scary place… ugh!!! i am not looking forward to that lecture next year!
How wonderful that your daughter came straight to you with her questions. You can’t control where they hear things (this is not the worse scenario, in my opinion, to hear this from a police officer), but for your daughter to ask the kinds of good healthy questions she asks … and even though we’re not ready for them … you handled it probably very well.
I agree with the schools that if the kids are in the targeted age, they need to be warned and on their guard. Boy or girl, never go to someone’s car! And there are bad people in any profession or town or place, and they can look like good people. They may even mostly lead good lives, but they are not good. Here we had an elementary school teacher who was preying on kids. You can’t even trust teachers! Luckily, there are plenty of good people trying to look out for kids. Plenty of good teachers.
Supplying information alone is not a well rounded education. ANy body can supply information. Taking that information into logical thought process. That is a well rounded education. Only good non combative conversation can do that.
Reblogged this on randomwordbyruth… and commented:
I have four adopted children and I am gay…I suppose the only thing to say is, the are wonderfully productive adults leading beautiful lives.. Everyone can plant a seed ad watch it grow…how it grows only depends on the nurturing it receives!
I believe that the lecture your daughter heard was a case of TMI..we don’t need to scare the hell out of them. We need to calmly explain that there are good and bad people out there..and how to tell the difference.
For a child to be exposed to the word pedophile shocks and angers me. This should have been handled in a more 12 friendly way.
I think it is important to educate children much younger than 12 on this issue. The key word is “educate”. Do not terrify them into never leaving the house again. Just talk with them and let them know who is out there.
Of course we don’t need them afraid of gays, or anything else that seems “weird” in our society, but they should know that creeps stalk the Internet and try to snatch up kids.
I’ve been telling my 13 year old this since he was about 5–when he started using the Internet.
Oh, and they should definitely know the difference between gay people and pedophiles!
Hi,
I understand your concern. My daughter asked me yesterday what rape was. It came up on a television program. Good or bad, we watch a lot of Law and Order type stuff in our house and use the cover your eyes and ears method of filtering (O.K., tell me what an awful parent I am). I told her it was when a man forced himself on a woman and made her do something she did not want to do. I followed this by saying, “there is more, but I am not comfortable discussing this with you at the moment.” My daughter is 9. She understands what I am saying on a 9-year-old level.
She also asked me yesterday what “gay” means. I told her it was when men liked men and women liked women. I think she knows what I mean by “like”, but since she did not ask me for further details, and I didn’t elaborate, I can’t be sure. Perhaps she thinks she is gay because she likes girls. I can live with that for now.
But your post got me thinking that I didn’t really tell the whole story and perhaps leaving something out could put my daughter at risk of being sexually abused because I didn’t specifically tell her that “women” could also force her to do things she didn’t want to do and that this is wrong, too. The fact is that there are gay pedophiles (or people who prey on children of the same sex) even if gay does not mean you are any more likely to be a pedophile.
We do the best we can as parents. Schools need to do a better job of telling people what is coming up in these lectures, but perhaps they didn’t understand the wording the police officer was going to use either. The good news is that your daughter came to you for answers and not some other 12-year-old.
Unfortunately, because of the no limit society in which we live, I think it’s important to be blunt about some of these things with our kids. Listen to the music they’re listening to, listen to the conversations they’re having with their peers, look at the movies they’re watching. It’s everywhere. You better be honest and upfront, and brutally so sometimes, sooner instead of later. As I said, this reality is unfortunate. But, it is reality nonetheless.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable these days for a 12-year-old to be told of a child in her age range being raped by a stranger. They need to be scared of these people they “meet” via the internet, because believe me they’re meeting them.
I’ve been asked many times as a police officer to speak to kids about safety, including internet safety. I consider myself fairly intelligent, and I enjoy teaching and speaking to groups. Most officers do not enjoy any of this, but do it because somebody has to. Nobody ever asked to see what I was going to say to the kids beforehand, so I could have said anything. Kids don’t need to be scared straight, they just need to be informed in a way that they’ll remember what you need them to remember. Some parents don’t want their kids exposed to stories about rape, etc. so I think this is one of those lectures that should have been run by the parents first so they could have their kids opt out. Those safety talks honestly should be given to the parents and not the kids anyway.
a parent also, I have run into similar situations. Just recently we have had a pedophile alert and in an capacity that he could understand we had a discussion. Its awkward and uncomfortable, as could be some of the questions they ask, but its worth the discussion. We have an open discussion on various topics frequently, from how his some of is friends with Autism think and may react differently, to pedophiles, and how gay people love people of the same gender, to how some families have more than one daddy or mommy, and some kids have stepparents to how his private parts are his, and how no one should touch his private parts besides him. It’s all in how you address their questions.
The issue is not open discussions, we are discussing all topics openly in our family. The issue is that their world is so full of dangers and risks, unlike our childhood. Perhaps it seems normal to some parents that at 12 they need to learn about pedophiles, to me it seems unbearable that this should be a part of their education.
The risks were there when we were kids, people just talked about them less. Internet ‘grooming’ wasn’t a thing back then but Paedophiles certainly were, we were told ‘don’t talk to strangers’ and ‘don’t get into a car with someone unless you know them AND your parents have told you to expect to see that person’. Paedophiles constantly change their game and sadly, in order to beat them, we have to as well. I’m not suggesting we tell our kids the sordid details but they need to know about the danger in some respect. It’s a sad thing to have to warn them about but not every experience they have in the world will be positive so we minimise the negative by educating them. I’ve heard from a number of sources that child rape and abduction rates are actually going down every year (despite what it might look like in the media) and I think it’s partly due to initiatives like this.
I agree it’s sad that we have to prepare them for issues they shouldn’t know that young. We had an incident with our son when he was 5 and his 6yr old friend taught him an inappropriate adult game. We ended up having to involve child welfare, cause the other child should never have known about this act/game. What I find disturbing is that Pedophiles are permitted to live near children, robbing the children potentially of their childhood. Its become a sad world.
No… you’re not hysterical. WE shouldn’t have to talk to our 12yo about these things… but it’s becoming more and more necessary each day.
Unfortunately there is a lot of bad in the world and our children must know about it, we can’t keep them in cottonwool…the consequences could be really terrible. Perhaps the world has changed since i was a kid, but I was informed from day one that you don’t go with strangers. The internet gives the impression of “knowing” a person, even when know absolutely nothing at all about them…for adults this is sometimes difficult, how much more so for children. We must teach them, as parents that’s our first priority, that there really are big bad wolves in the forest…and they are gay and they are straight…and all the colors of the rainbow.
Reblogged this on Bastet and Sekhmet and commented:
If you have children, this is an important article for you to read…how do we educate our children to be safe even in a virtual world…don’t let the topic scare you, it’s very important to you and to your children.
Not a parent however I say be honest and answer the question in a age appropriate matter. How do you determine what is age appropriate listen to how your child articulates then response accordingly. Besides if the question is being asked then the curiosity is present. Your answer and how you respond can at the very least build communication between you and your child. Most importantly like most children when they feel comfortable talking to someone they will tell them everything that is why teachers for example find out everything that is going on at home. You must understand whatever you say most children is going to google their curiosity anyway. So if I was a parent I would just be honest and explain what I know and what I don’t know. But that’s just my opinion like I said I’m not a parent.
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I am going to be blunt and descriptive about sexual abuse, so hold on to your hat. By the way, it has nothing to do with Gay or not Gay. It has to do with perversion. Kids should not be raped when going to visit someone to exchange a game. That’s just sick.
When I was in grade school, I was cautioned by my parents, not to talk to strangers, especially those that offered candy. At the time, there was a child kidnapper in the news.
My parents taught me about the changes a child goes through and where babies came from when I was 7. These were books title, “A Doctor Talks to 7 and 8 Year Olds” and “A Doctor Talks to 9 and 10 Year Olds”. These were excellent books for the time period. I felt educated about most things.
What I didn’t learn from these books or from my parents was about the subject of perversion.
So when a doctor had me hold certain positions when getting an exam, I didn’t imagine that I was being stared at and thought it was part of the exam. I figured it out some time later.
When the neighborhood (older) teenage babysitter did sexual experimentation on me and on my older sister, as 10 and 11year olds, We thought it was strange but never mentioned it to my family. It happened on more than one occasion and I don’t fully recall all the details with certainty.
When I was thirteen and my friend’s father cornered me alone and started french kissing me, I was scared. This, I knew was wrong. I told my mother, the police were involved, denials of any wrong doing were uttered and in the end it was “he said, she said’. My solution was to never go over there again which totally confused my friend as I didn’t tell her what happened until we were out of high school.
Kids need to know about perversion but it is best addressed by relating what love is…including the difference between love and hormones. It should be addressed as an education, not as a means of instilling fear in another. A child should be encouraged but not enforced to share any experience they may have heard of, even if it didn’t happen to them personally. Talk about the details and get them to tell you what they think is right or wrong about the situation. Encourage them to acknowledge any negative intuition they may have about any given situation and act out different ways to handle or avert the situation.
I know that this is a lot to ask, but it needs to be done. You have to drill (act out) situations they present until they feel they can handle them. In order to do this, you have to be a safe person to talk to. No freaking out scenarios, otherwise they may tell their best friend who is unequipped to help them or even worse, they may tell no one.
I completely agree with those who are concerned that their children are learning this in school. I want to know what my daughter is taught regarding the subject. I was shocked when my girlfriend said her 13 year old practiced putting condoms on a cucumber in his Sex Ed class. When my child was of school age, I requested that she be allowed to opt out of those classes and this was done. I don’t know if they still do this or not.
One final comment, childhood molestation is not an uncommon event. I have done a survey of the people that I knew, from various backgrounds, ethnicity and income level and at least 75% of the women had been molested.
So, it was not hard to imagine that I had a pretty confused perspective of sex but the most confusing part that gave me the most trouble in life was as a result of my own parents. I found some very explicit pornographic books under my mom’s bed, well above my age level that described sex acts of all kinds. If you can think of it, it was in there, no sexual act was left untouched. It may have been used for bedroom fantasy ideas, I have no idea…I never told anyone I read it from cover to cover. So what does that do to the mind of a 13 year old. It erases any sense of moral judgment that should be there. Because my parents were my role model and the book was theirs, then those acts must be okay. Well, they were not okay and they went too far and many of the acts were literally criminal.
I have been fortunate enough to have gotten counseling and have adopted a good moral standard to live by but I had to go through a lot of shame, blame and regret before I got there. So do me a favor, If you have porn in any fashion (books, pictures, magazines, computer, etc.) in your teenage household…Get Rid Of It!
By the way, I have never mentioned to my parents the effect their porn had on me…but it was worse than all of the molestations prior to it. I would be grateful to prevent anyone else from having to go through this confusion.
I had to tell my oldest son (at age 10) about gay pedophiles, because his grandfather is one. Or was–he says he’s “cured”. We have to live every day with balancing keeping our kids safe from someone who has abused boys in the past but AS FAR AS WE KNOW hasn’t done anything in 15 years, vs being the only family left to a man, himself abused as a child, whose other children, grandchildren, and siblings refuse to have anything to do with. (None of my husband’s aunts and uncles on that side of the family came to our wedding.)
It is a very hard line to walk.
Please may I make a comment though? Be careful that when you tell homophobes to leave, you are not being equally judgmental about people who have a considered, though difficult and unfashionable position. It is one thing to think gay people should be, I don’t know, shot or locked up or something, and a very different thing to disagree with gay marriage or gay priests, for example.
You r right about me being judgmental…I did think about it, but wanted to prevent comments in regards which I received before. Apology!
That’s okay. I understand wanting to prevent the torrent of hate that gets spilled about these things! So so sad.
A disturbingly real social dilemma is raised here. Interesting input from all. I share for deeper consideration a video I watched recently that had me thinking about how to use this information to protect our sons and daughters. I’m obviously not alone in pushing this boulder uphill.
How Porn Creates the John: Porn, Trafficking and the Social Construction of Masculinity”
No, you’re not the only parent who’s frightened and yes, it is sad. However, sex is so pervasive in our society (on television, in music and have you seen the female characters in video games? Enormous breasts!) that parents really do need to have conversations with their children about sex, in an age appropriate manner, long before they are a tween.
As far as your daughter’s specific question, I don’t think that it matters if the person is gay or straight, black or white, male or female, kids need to know that bad people are out there and they can look like any one of us. No need for graphic detail but, there’s nothing wrong with being straight forward. Hang in there, Mom! It does get better as they get older. Well, maybe not better, just different. 🙂
I feel that I need to explain again, sex has been discussed before and it is not the open discussions that Im complaining about. It’s the fact that the world has become so scary for children. No issue is off the table in our family, that’s not a problem.
It is a tough question. It would be so easy to keep them in a bubble protected from everything. On one hand I wanted my kids to be kids as long as humanly possible without all this stuff on evil people. But I remembered my childhood and how I learned most things on the street because my parents didn’t bother to educate me on those things. Half of what I learned on the street was either backwards or inside out and far from the truth. I have always been straight with my kids on everything, giving them straight non threatening answers to their questions no matter the topic, in fact we got a note from a teacher who was very impressed we had covered these topics with my daughter. But also each child is different. My daughter was born head strong and determined and when she set a goal….it was done! My son was much more laid back and a little bit of a procrastinator, so we explained things to each child as they grew up geared to their maturity. It paid off and I have two beautiful adult children, one a 3rd grade teacher and my son just graduated college. What ever you decide, remember you want them to learn these things from you as well as strangers or other kids.
the biggest challenge in parenting ALL children, regardless of age, is having to think on your feet to appropriately react to random happenings.
here is how i would have answered it, though i never have had to do so with my own children:
gay is a cultural term meaning “homosexual” and straight is a cultural term meaning “heterosexual.” sexuality is about who you love and desire to have as your special companion in your life.
pedophilia is a crime against a person, just as rape of a man or woman (by a man or a woman) is a crime. love cannot injure.
there is no such thing, therefore, as a “gay” or “straight” pedophile or rapist. they are simply criminals in their offenses against victims.
It does not make sense that at twelve our children need to be exposed to this stuff. It’s sick and it’s broken and it is senseless. Unfortunately it does not have to make sense to be truth. When you look at statistics you will see that most sexual abuse is committed by someone known to the victim, it doesn’t help that the internet now allows us to “know” SO many more people.
However knowledge, education and awareness are essential tools in helping us keep our kids safe. I does not matter if we like it or not we have to make our children aware (age appropriately of course) of those dangers.
In a perfect world dilemmas like this wouldn’t exist, we are not in a perfect world and these issues aren’t new issues. Women and children especially have been treated badly all over the world probably since time began.
We are living in an age that is far more aware than ever before and awareness can be the catalyst for change.
It’s not good that children are exposed to this information, but they are far better to be exposed to the information than to the abuse itself.
I’m not leaving and I love your blog even more now! (if that was possible). I have a 3 and a 5 year old so your blog is prep for me. Thanks for paving the way….I’ll be referencing your blog in the future.
Although one night my son and I had a sleepover. So in the morning he woke me up asking “mom, how do babies come out of a pee pee hole?” He’s 5….oy. I got some anatomical pics of a pregnant lady on the laptop and explained as much as I felt necessary. I even used the word vagina.
It is a hard topic. I don’t think that being gay has anything to do with pedophilia. I think it’s important to make the distinction. I had to have the conversation about safety with my children, after we discovered there is a registered sex offender living across the street from us. This is a good topic to post and makes parents think about how to address these issues with our kids, without making them afraid of every shadow.
Reblogged this on Heart-2-Heart Parenting.
I think its extremely important for kids (tweens) to learn about not only computer crimes but all pedophile crimes and abduction crimes. Its sad but that is what our society has come to. I spoke to a woman the other day and her friends teenage daughter was abducted from a mall a few months back. They found her luckily….but not all girls are so lucky. They happen to get her friends daughter in the mall because they acted like they were model scouts. They told her she was pretty and they took her picture. They asked her to go to the car to get their business card and they took her. Their plan was to sell her to the highest bidder. They were arrested (of course – since I have the whole story) but its scary the things that we need to prepare our children for. I am currently pregnant with a girl and I am already dreading these conversations with her.
Wow, given the sensitive topic, I can appreciate all the concerns. Everyone offered a different perspective based on their own experience. We all agree on the fact that we need to talk to our kids. We want them to know about sex, sexual orientation and sexual abuse. We want them to learn to differentiate between an individual and a stereotype. In terms of what to say to answer your daughter’s question, “Mommy, is this a Gay Pedophile?” I think JustJohn gave you the very best one.
My input has to do with “how” we prepare our kids so they will be able to handle whatever’s being thrown their way when they are not in our home or under our care. It may be the unwanted material, peer pressure or the potential sexual predator who’s lurking around the corner or on the internet. Most, if not all parents, do teach/tell our kids to listen to their own inner voice, to trust their intuition, their feelings. What’s more important is we need to teach them “how” to do that.
We teach our kids the “how” by allowing them to fully experience all of their feelings. When they’re happy, let them laugh uproariously. When they’re sad, let them cry their heart out. When they’re angry, let them work out their anger, safely of course. If they need to scream, have them scream in the pillow. If they need to punch something, give them another pillow or suggest that they use the mattress.
Avoid the everyday disempowering messages that create confusion and/or contradict their real feelings such as “Be good or be nice.” This may sound reasonable enough, especially when we want them to accommodate another person. It can be a sibling, a friend or an adult. But what that tells them is that they are not a good/nice person unless they comply. Instead we need to and want to allow them to say “no”. When they do, we want to use empowering statements such as “You can make self-honoring choices.” and be ok with their no. I am not suggesting that we take every no answer. I am suggesting that we allow the ones that we can live with and negotiate the ones that we absolutely cannot accept.
For more on how to empower your kids, please visit
myheart-2-heartparenting.
Thanks for letting me share.
The risks were there when we were kids, people just talked about them less. Internet ‘grooming’ wasn’t a thing back then but Paedophiles certainly were, we were told ‘don’t talk to strangers’ and ‘don’t get into a car with someone unless you know them AND your parents have told you to expect to see that person’. Paedophiles constantly change their game and sadly, in order to beat them, we have to as well. I’m not suggesting we tell our kids the sordid details but they need to know about the danger in some respect. It’s a sad thing to have to warn them about but not every experience they have in the world will be positive so we minimise the negative by educating them. I’ve heard from a number of sources that child rape and abduction rates are actually going down every year (despite what it might look like in the media) and I think it’s partly due to initiatives like this.
Haven’t read through all the comments [shame on me!!] so excuse me if I’m repeating, but I think that topics like this should be discussed with parents before a school agrees to have them. I think sending home a note like they do before they have the sex ed talk in class is appropriate.
However, the sad, scary, intrusive fact is that kids will be exposed to things before parents have talked, or are willing to talk, to their children about it. I think that when things arise [such as sex and/or violence] it becomes important that the parent discuss this with their child so they are not seeking answers elsewhere that might confuse them, or worse send them on the wrong path of understanding the topic. I believe that all parents want their children to learn things in a structured, safe manner. But, unfortunately, we live in a world that throws our children into adult matters way before they are able to digest.
I commend you for keeping your cool about it [at least it appeared that way from the post]! I think being confused about this topic is understandable. Hope you were able to discuss it with your daughter so that she does understand [hint: a posted in the beginning talked about a superb way to discuss behavior as opposed to sex!]
Actually, I think pedophilia is probably a topic that needs to be introduced before they’re 12! Unfortunately, people put in a position of power too often abuse that power. My son will not be alone in a room with a doctor. And he will be aware of certain aspects of pedophilia long before he knows about sex.
I’m surprised to hear there are any 12 year olds who exist who have no idea what sex is. Maybe I’m just jaded. I first heard of it when I was 8, I think. Second grade. Someone told me it’s what parents do (I’m guessing she walked in on something she wasn’t meant to see…).
12 is around the age that kids start exerting independence. They want to hang out at the mall, and have internet “boyfriends” & “girlfriends,” without their parents watching over their every move like hungry vultures waiting to pounce on dying prey. In order to have the independence they crave, however, they need to be informed. They probably should know what sex is, they should definitely know that there are people who want to take advantage of them, and that they should not be made to feel uncomfortable. & maybe have a rape whistle to hide beneath their shirt at the mall. I think this conversation is more clear, and therefore, more helpful to the children, if they have an understanding of what sex is.
Also, I might be wrong, but isn’t 12 around the age that kids take sex ed, also? So if they don’t know what sex is yet, they will soon.
I am tormented by the same issues; how to raise children and teach them to keep safe and, at the same time, not to introduce some things too early. My girls are 7 and 9 and they have friends who have already been introduced to the whole popular/culture, insane, sex-driven culture. Sometimes I feel like a prude.
And, no, I don’t think you’re overreacting.
I completely support your hysteria. I have two daughters and I would be so upset if they had this discussion at age 12. My oldest is almost 9 and I am starting to get certain questions that I’m not ready for.
That is really unfortunate. It’s a shame they feel the need to teach this stuff to 12-ers, but for some of the kids in your daughter’s class, it was the right age. I don’t know any good solution for this, except maybe to remove it from the schools, give the info to the parents, and let the parents decide when it’s a good time for their children to be ready for this info.
My 12 year old’s teacher asked how I felt about my daughter reading the newspaper in class, doing analysis of articles etc. I said no and he was respectful of that. There is so much I don’t want her to know about yet, especially in detail. I’ve had stranger danger talks with our kids, they were horrified that anyone might want to grab them, it is a fine line deciding what’s best to discuss.
Oh my god I feel your pain. At twelve I was wearing pie crust collars and Mary-Janes. These kids are much older at twelve than we were. Somehow we have to adjust. It’s a minefield and so scary but a kid prepared is a safe and informed one.
I’m trying to access the 2nd article, but getting an error message that I’m “looking for something that isn’t there”….. Anyone else having this problem?
Reblogged this on nexusmods and commented:
robin scott
It is a scary world. I know you wished it never happened, but anytime your child can come home and ask you questions is wonderful. Many children won’t and will remain confused. It’s great that you are addressing this issue for other parents.