There are some key conversations us parents need to have with our children as they get older, to make sure that they’re properly equipped for everything life has to throw at them.
And one of the biggest things we need to talk to them about is sex. It might not be the easiest of conversations to have but it’s so important to make sure that our children are given age-appropriate information about sex and relationships. Especially when it seems that the sex education provided in schools often doesn’t go beyond the bare minimum.
In fact, when online pharmacy Curely asked 600 adults about their thoughts and experiences around sexual health, 46.3% said that they thought sex education in schools only covers the basics. And when they were asked if the information they were given in school prepared them for real-life situations almost 20% said that they were ‘not at all’ prepared as a result of what they were told in school.
Of course, as parents we shouldn’t be leaving all this to the schools anyway but it’s interesting to know how much (or how little) is actually being covered in sex education classes.
One thing it’s well worth chatting to our children about is to be careful of trusting things they see or read about online when it comes to sex. While the internet has made it a lot easier to get information and find answers to questions we might have, it’s also not really regulated so false information can spread really easily. Curely’s survey found that 57% of people agreed that the internet spreads a lot of misinformation. So make sure your children know they can come to you if they’re ever in any doubt about things they’ve read online.
The other key things to discuss with your children are contraceptives and STDs. Again, not the most fun topic of conversation, but vital for making sure they go out into the world with all the knowledge they need to enjoy sex safely.
One added benefit of talking openly with our children about these things is that they’ll hopefully then feel more comfortable talking about them in the future with their partners and with medical professionals. Just under a third of the adults in Curely’s survey said that they’d avoided discussing their sexual health with their doctor because they felt embarrassed, and this embarrassment in general seems to be the biggest hurdle stopping people discussing issues around sexual health. So if we can have these conversations with our children as they grow up, hopefully we can make some positive changes for them and help them have more open conversations when they’re needed later on in life.
If you want to read more about the research carried out by Curely, including interesting stats on contraceptive use and attitudes around STDs, then make sure you read their full report.
Disclosure: this is a collaborative post