Alaukika Sharma, 10, came crying to her mother after a boy in her class used the choicest profanities for her, and quite unprovoked. She had often been at the receiving end of this persistent abuse in the classroom, and it left her visibly shaken when it trickled onto her WhatsApp one day. “My girl is aware of what these words mean, but when these were hurled at her, she was shell-shocked. When I confronted the boy’s mother, she feigned ignorance and gave her a thrashing instead of educating him on what these words mean and why he shouldn’t use them,” says Rachita Sharma, Alaukika’s mother.
Catch them young
The schools run an awareness programme about good and bad touch in pre-primary and primary classes, but that’s not all children should know. Teaching kids about appropriate and inappropriate touching should progress to more complex conversations around anatomy, language, consent (both physical and verbal) and behaviour as they move to middle and high school. There’s a need for age-appropriate sex education for children in the times that we are living in. These conversations aren’t easy to start with a young child, but if done by a parent at home, it prepares the child well to handle teenage trouble, turmoil and adolescence.
As a mother of teen and pre-teen boys, Mumbai-based Coach and Consultant Jolly Priya could relate to children’s normalisation of cuss words. “Children use swear words to express frustration or simply to belong or look cool among their peers. As parents, it’s our responsibility to make them aware of its meaning and how it can affect the recipient. Healthy relationships are built on uncomfortable conversations.”
Rightly so, because a teacher has a class of about 30-50 children to manage and she may enforce discipline, a parent alone can nip the problem in the bud.
Start early
Most schools run Adolescence Education Programme, usually conducted for pupils after Grade 8, and often separately for boys and girls if it is a co-ed school. The conversation is quite textual in approach and deals with the problem superficially. “However, I suggest that schools engage in similar activities designed for younger students,” adds Priya.
Mumbai-based Padma Rewari, psychotherapist and counsellor, couldn’t agree more with Priya and feels that the gender-segregation isn’t required while holding such classes. Advocating gender-agnostic sex education, Rewari says, “Age-appropriate sex education is the need of the hour. Irrespective of gender, children should be taught about their bodies and how to draw boundaries, emotional and physical and form relationships based on respect and consent, both verbal and physical. It would go a long way if done this way.”
The schools and parents must come together to do it right; one cannot do it alone. It is a game of access to the right information, not half-baked knowledge that harms children more than good. Children these days are pretty tech-savvy with internet access. It is a scary situation. “Every type and kind of information is available on the internet. It becomes more important for schools and parents to take the lead and provide knowledge proactively. The information conveyed by schools and parents can be understood and absorbed by these young minds without harming them. Rather this activity will help them grow up and become confident individuals who respect their and others’ boundaries,” opines Priya.
Teach them, right?
Despite all the technological and material advancements, sex education or conversations about sex with our children are still taboo in most households, explains Prakriti Prasad, Parenting Coach, wellness mentor and author of ParenTEEN.
“The long-standing societal stigma around sex and related topics has created a morbid curiosity that the children try to satisfy through internet surfing and personal experiments and an unhealthy perspective of what it symbolises,” says Prasad. She attributes this narrow-minded approach as the sole reason many children grow up linking sex to something perverse when it is a natural part of the human experience. “The vacuum of awareness often makes them all the more vulnerable to manipulation and predatory behaviours, whether from strangers, adults or even their peers,” she adds.
Also, children tend to imitate their parents and elders, and often their behaviour reflects that of the immediate family environment and surroundings. “If parents are abusive or unkind to each other or other family members, children will pick up the same, effortlessly. It is important to give the right upbringing to children by giving them the right value system that keeps them upright in such matters as well,” elucidates Rewari.
Parenting tips
Prasad often gives simple advice to parents of young children to normalise holding hands, hugging their spouses, or even planting a peck on their cheeks in front of their young children instead of being embarrassed about their physical demonstrations of love. “When parents overcome these barriers around themselves, they create a healthy environment, making themselves appear more accessible to have conversations about sex with their children of all age groups. It’s equally important for parents to refrain from scolding or pulling up their children (no matter how young) for asking uncomfortable questions related to their sex organs or their sexuality. They would then seek answers from unscrupulous sources like the internet or their peers,” Prasad adds.
Children are curious by nature, and they have questions. If they do not get the answers from the right sources, they will seek them. “The answers they will source themselves may not be entirely correct and helpful. It could impact them negatively as well. It’s about time to have these difficult conversations. Let’s talk, and openly and freely,” says Priya.
Prasad believes that with the right intentions and structured programming, parents must broach these subjects with their children and work on destigmatisation. “It will help parents raise children with a healthy and balanced opinion on sex,” she concludes.
