Where to Learn About Sex?

Children can learn sex at home, in school or in the street.

Photo from Ross Griff’s flickr 

The family is watching a movie one cozy night and a seemingly nice guy character, the one your son liked and looked up to, said the words “hand job”. Your son replicated the word ending it with a question mark, how will you respond? What will you say to your younger sister when she asked what “sex” is upon hearing it from you?

We can escape these questions of the young by lying and denying. But at some point, they’ll be old enough to know the terms and they’ll learn more about it somewhere. Will it be at home, school or in the streets?

It is a parent’s fear to expound the idea of sex to their child.  They see them as delicate beings and preaching them sexual profanity is a contamination to their mind. But they have organs that work, drive to copulate and minds to fill.

Talking about sex within the family is uncomfortable for the child and the parent. Certain parents aren’t confident to even say the vulgar words their children are sure to learn somewhere. If they won’t learn it inside the house, an option is to let the educators teach them.

Sex education at school goes beyond the act of reproducing but also covers sensitive issues like sexuality and sexual health. Classes are gender specific to focus on issues pertaining to their gender and to avoid embarrassment against the opposite sex.

Schools may offer two types of sex education classes. The Comprehensive Sexuality Education teaches broad range of issues including body image, masturbation and contraception. The other class, called the Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Program, will not bear students with pressing information but will assert the abstinence from all sexual behaviors.

The Comprehensive Sexuality Education may be in conflict with family and religious beliefs. Handing them the details may entice them but will emphasize on safe sex. While abstinence is a rigorous battle in today’s society, it is the safest way to avoid problems arising from premarital and unsafe sex.

If there’s no talk at home, and even in school, they’ll eventually get the information outside. It takes bold faith to entrust this lesson to the public.

Wherever you’re coming from, we agree that unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases can potentially ruin a person’s life.

Where do you think should children learn about sex?

Sources:
Why Sex Education Also Belongs in the Home; Advocates for Youth
Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex; Guttmacher Institute
Sex education in schools pros and cons; YOUniversityTV
Sex Education in Schools; About.com

Pay the school + Pay the child

Educating a child is more expensive than once thought.

Photo from photoXpress

You pay the tuition, you pay his clothes, and you pay for his food. To get more benefit out of school, you should also pay your child for going to school.

Ambitious study of Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. paid $6.3 million to 18,000 students to testify his lead towards the education policy, classified as “one of the more rigorous studies ever”.

Students who are paid to merely attend school, like a day job, significantly fared better in their academics as measured by standardized tests. Money as an incentive is a pliable motivator. For these children, money is sweets, is games, is shoes, is cool stuff.

I’d want that. I wish I was also paid to go to school. If all parents did, all students will be rich! Of course it will make students work for it, especially those that are in their teenage years as money is independence. This may also mean training them for the harsh real world, that you hardly see “free work”, that work is done in exchange of money.

Medley of questions in my head challenged the results, even if I accepted the verity of the study. Couldn’t we see any other motivator other than money? If this was implemented, would they really like to learn, which is a never-dying process; or will they stop trying to learn when there’s no one paying them anymore? And are standardized tests the only measure of intelligence, forcing them to like science and math and disregarding arts or athletics?

Would you pay your child to go to school?

Source:
Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?; Time

 

What Your Birth Order Says About You

No two children are alike, and your birth order appears to sway that difference.

Photo from photoXpress

You don’t have the choice to be born the eldest, or the youngest, but have you yearned to be born in a different order? Perhaps you despised your eldest bro being bossy, or the youngest being spoiled while you, the middle child, was given the least amount of time from parents. Or have you died in the immense expectations, as the eldest, to be the one that the family will be proud of?

Our birth order affected us.

Renowned psychiatrist Alfred Adler elaborated in his theories that the child’s characteristics are based on birth order. Here are the descriptions by the simplification of Dr. Stein:

Oldest Child

• Family Situation: Dethroned by next child. Has to learn to share. Parent expectations are usually very high. Often given responsibility and expected to set an example.
• Characteristics: May become authoritarian or strict. Feels power is his right. Can become helpful if encouraged. May turn to father after birth of next child.

Middle Child

• Family Situation: Is “sandwiched” in. May feel squeezed out of a position of privilege and significance.
• Characteristics: May be even-tempered, “take it or leave it” attitude. May have trouble finding a place or become a fighter of injustice.

Youngest Child

• Family Situation: Has many mothers and fathers. Older children try to educate him. Never dethroned.
• Characteristics: Wants to be bigger than the others. May have huge plans that never work out. Can stay the “baby.” Frequently spoiled.

Are you the only child, have a twin, the only boy, only girl or in any child position not in the typical above? Head on to Adlerian Overview of Birth Order Characteristics.

A few more interesting findings from birth order studies:

• Firstborns claim IQ advantage, having more IQ points than the younger sibling. Concurrently, a secondborn is smarter than the third based on IQ.
• Elders weight more and stood taller than later-born siblings.
• High-paying professions often inhere with elders, while the “exhilarating life of an artist or a comedian, an adventurer, entrepreneur, GI or firefighter” are for the youngest. Middle children remained a puzzle, as it seems that their record differs profusely.

Psychologist Diana L. Walcutt added that spacing between children matters. It is especially true when the gap went over 6 years, meaning the siblings belonged to different generation of fad, music, events, and even exposed to different administration of governance.

It seems, to my case, that these birth order findings held true. I’m a middle child, and you can only imagine the existing and unsparing competition between me and my elder sister. How about you, what does birth order says about you and your siblings?

More Moments for you:
What Your Sleeping Position Says About You
Men and Women Shopping Dissimilarity
Children: Robots Are Human

Sources:
Adlerian Overview of Birth Order Characteristics; Adlerian.us
Birth Order and Personality; PsychCentral
The Power of Birth Order; TIME

Strange Parenting Practices

Every family has a strange practice that the dependents should follow.

Photo from Ewan Topping’s flickr

I don’t question my parents’ rules in our house until I’m in the age of reason. I remember that time when I cannot have a spree with my PlayStation for about a month because.. it’s evil. My brother, in high school, can’t join the Karate Club because he will get hurt. What? Says who? What’s the basis? But see, we’re dependents so we better just follow.

A recent questionable parenting is that of Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper, who didn’t reveal their child’s gender until his 5th age. Sasha is anatomically a boy but they dress him in a girl’s clothes and play with dolls. They even let Sasha decide which clothes to wear in school, either a girl or a boy’s uniform.

Our judgment won’t matter because it’s parents’ choice. Here are more strange parenting practices that ought to raise our eyebrows.

Amy Chua

When daughter Lulu could’t play a piano piece, Amy would “threaten her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.”

Lina Medina

Lina gave birth to her eldest at the age of 5 years old and 7 months. How does this happen? She is suffering from Precocious Puberty. So with early sexual development, she gave birth and regards her son a mere younger brother. She even prefers dolls that spending time with her son. The sad case is that they never knew who the father was.

The Duggar Family

With 20 children so far this 2012, Duggar family is huge. And they plan to have as much children as possible.

They are happy, debt free and self-supporting. I hope they think of forming their own Duggar football team!

Michael Jackson

We know the story. Michael is an overprotective father. He doesn’t want his children to be picked on just because their father sings thriller, so everytime they’ll go public, they have to wear masks. They never go schooling with other kids, but adhered on homeschooling. Well, I guess they’re stucked at home for a long time.

Steve Russo

Perhaps Steve would do all it takes to ensure manhood of his son. He organized a party with alcohols like vodka and rum, and a stripper’s pole. Photos are idiotically uploaded to Facebook, which favored his arrest for “giving booze to minors, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors”.

Do you have any unconventional parenting experiences within your family?

More Moments for you:
Children: Robots Are Human
Comment for Same-Sex Schools Study
What If.. You Sell a Body to a Chemist

Sources:
Couple Finally Reveals Child’s Gender, Five Years After Birth; Yahoo!
Strange Parenting Tales: Fact or Fiction?; squidoo
Bad Parenting: Strange Stories of Mindless Moms and Dumb Dads; About.com
Weird Kids: Is raising children unconventionally really bad parenting?; babble.com