Now when it comes to sex education, it is said that it is to prevent and contain sexual assault. This view is biased and only emphasizes half the facts.
Simply imagine what a child, whether before or after school, can do when he encounters sexual harassment or sexual assault, even if he clearly knows that the other person is committing a crime. Screaming, resisting? What if the adult is timid and his position is easy to be found? It may stop his behavior. What if screaming and resisting are useless?
In order to effectively curb sexual assault, the most important thing is to improve legislation and strengthen punishment measures and efforts, so that those who commit crimes against young children can be easily caught and punished. This is what adults should do.
Although it is not easy to collect criminal evidence, admit and verify children's testimony, it is a difficult problem facing the whole world, and it is not excluded that adults instigate children to make false accusations. American singer Jackson was falsely accused.
However, the more difficult it is, the more it shows that adults should take responsibility and find ways to overcome difficulties. Let fairness and justice be done, and let the whole society have a clear and consistent atmosphere of "everyone yelling" for those who sexually abuse children. This is the most urgent task that should not be ignored, advocated and done!
Sex education is of course necessary, but if we boost our sales or fame in order to sell a few picture books or micro-courses on sex education, we ignore the concerns and demands of the law and law enforcement that should be borne by adults, that is to give up the basics.
Moreover, sex education is too general and should be subdivided into at least three parts: sex safety education, physical health education and gender identity education. Let's talk about sex safety education first.
Sex safety education
Some of the visitors I have met who have experienced sexual harassment and sexual assault are five or six years old, and some are in primary schools, junior high schools and senior high schools. When recalling the events of that year, they all mentioned that it was not easy to tell their families. In other words, they can't find anyone they can trust and rely on in this world.
One is the fourth grade of primary school, and she said this:
That uncle and my parents are colleagues, and he lives downstairs. He and my parents will also visit and chat.
The reason why I didn't tell my mother was that she would probably scold me for not being sensible. Besides, she has always been very kind to outsiders and strict with her family. I feel that she is afraid of that uncle and may not have the courage to do anything after telling her. And if I'm facing that person, I certainly can't explain clearly and firmly what happened.
I didn't tell my dad because I never told my dad my own habits. He is always busy, either drinking with his friends, buying things for me or talking about Doby with me. My mother is in charge of everything, such as my study and life.
But my performance is definitely different. I will never go to that family again. For several days in a row, I was unhappy and lost my temper. When I saw that person, I didn't say hello. When that person came to my house, I ran out, and so on. However, my parents didn't see my change. "
A five-year-old girl told me in her thirties, "It was like being enchanted at that time. He let * * * do whatever he wants. Although I know something is wrong, the man's expression and words are so different. I've never been in such a situation. I'm simply stupid.
When I ran home, I was too scared and ashamed to say anything. When I got home, my parents came home from work and were busy cooking dinner. They didn't notice my abnormality. I seem to pretend that nothing happened on purpose, and I don't know why I pretended to be fine. But it can't be okay. What happened that day is deeply imprinted on my mind.
A girl in junior high school told me that it was her mother's boyfriend who sexually harassed her, but he didn't do anything specific. He just lifted her skirt or touched her chest and patted her, saying that the little girl had grown up. If her mother saw it, she would scold her boyfriend half-heartedly, but she didn't say anything to the child, as if nothing had happened.
A male tourist told me that when he was 7 years old, he went to see an open-air movie with his neighbor's uncle. Before the movie started, when there was a lot of noise, uncle said a lot in his ear. He couldn't remember it clearly, and he didn't understand it at that time, but later, as he grew older, he knew that it must be a bad place, because he always remembered the mysterious and obscene expression on his neighbor's face, feeling at a loss and deeply afraid.
I don't remember any changes since I got home. Parents are very busy and there are many children at home. I won't find anything strange about him, but my behavior has changed. I must remember my neighbors far away.
There are many cases, including the story of Lin, which everyone has been talking about. The most important point in these cases is that the child didn't tell his parents for various reasons, and the parents were careless and didn't observe the abnormality of the child, or observed the abnormality without delving into the reasons.
What is reflected here is not that children don't know it's bad, even if they haven't received sex education, they have a basic judgment, but how to deal with it on the spot and tell their parents afterwards.
Regarding sex safety education, I have the following conclusions:
For children under the age of eleven or twelve, you don't have to explain sexual behavior as clearly as you explain physical hygiene. If children's memory and understanding are not in place, they may misunderstand or panic, and they will be alert and fearful to all their relatives, which is not conducive to the positive establishment of children's interpersonal communication model;
Just tell the children that the place covered by the vest and shorts is our private place, and no one is allowed to touch it, even through the clothes.
Only when mom and dad give you a bath. If anyone touches it, shout stop! Go away! I don't like you! You'd better run away and go to a crowded place. After meeting your parents or teachers, tell them about it and they will definitely help you!
Tell your child that you must emphasize that the police, teachers and parents will protect you. No matter what their acquaintances, friends and relatives have done to you that makes you uncomfortable or makes you feel uncomfortable and strange, you must tell your parents, because they will always stand by you, always speak for you and help you!
This is the most important point. Children can't always be expected to handle it properly. If you can learn sex education, you will deal with it. That is, adults have learned the theory of sexual assault. When they are sexually assaulted at once, can you guarantee that you can cope with it freely and that you can prevent each other? Can't! So parents must take responsibility and adults must do more.
Parents here pay more attention to their children's daily life, make them feel that you are close to her, and are willing to tell you the truth, especially important and special things, so that children can regard you as a backer and a safe base, and they can trust and rely on you. This involves the way you usually interact with your child and the parent-child relationship, and whether you observe and understand the child's state, whether you can find the abnormal performance of the child in emotion and behavior in time and find the reason in the right way.
I once encountered a case in which a senior two girl was pregnant for five months, but her parents didn't see it, or the teacher saw it first. Parents should be careful and patient, which is what we should cultivate ourselves.
Sports health education
Another aspect of sex education is the knowledge about physical hygiene.
There have been various experts and experts, various picture books and various experiences of other countries on this topic, and enough has been said.
I just want to remind you that, whether in China or Europe and America, it is basically an essential part of school education for grade 6. 1 1- 12.
If you don't talk about letting yourself go home to watch at school, or if you don't speak well at school, then parents must stand up and talk about it, or find some videos to show their children. There are quite a lot of such resources now.
This era will be formal and rigorous. If the school is comprehensive, parents can supplement what their children don't know from living habits and details.
I don't advise parents to read the self-media articles calling for sex education, and feel that it is time to have sex education one day, just like taking a class at school, just holding a copy or a textbook.
Lectures at home are not so formal. It is best to tell your child bit by bit as he grows up and according to his understanding.
Deliberately treating this as a big deal just shows that you haven't really seen sex as natural and normal. Here are some suggestions:
If preschool children ask what it's like to get married and have children, think about where I came from, or if a second-child family asks how my younger brother and sister were born, you can use metaphors and analogies, such as flowering and bearing fruit. Don't worry about using useless terms, it's not standardized.
What is important is that with the child's level of knowledge and experience, he thinks he understands. Otherwise, it is not a good thing if a bunch of terms confuse children more.
Don't expect children to learn all the truths in the world correctly at once. It's impossible.
Seize the opportunities in life.
For example, a girl saw her mother bleeding during her menstrual period, a boy noticed Tintin while taking a bath with her father, or a child saw her mother hanging a bra and asked about it, all of which could be explained in time.
When my daughter was three or four years old, a nanny at home changed her clothes. She stood on the bed, two small hands sticking out, just grabbing the nanny's chest. The nanny was not married at that time, and she hid with a red face. On the contrary, her performance attracted my daughter's attention, and she deliberately reached for it.
I happened to see it there. I stopped her, let the nanny go out first, and then told my daughter that this place belongs to everyone. Girls will grow up when they grow up, but boys won't. Here, the baby will be suckled later. Aunt nanny has grown up and is ready to breastfeed her baby. You will be like this when you grow up. This place is untouchable. It is very inappropriate and impolite for you to touch aunt nanny. Stop touching it. Remember, you can't let anyone touch you here.
My daughter always listens to me, especially when I tell her seriously. She never touched the nanny again, but she began to observe me and the nanny. A few days later, when she was getting dressed in the morning, she said, when I grow up, I will also wear the kind of milk clothes that you and your nanny are wearing, and then I will wear a skirt after wearing the milk clothes. Because no one told her the name bra, and people generally can't say the word, she never knew how to say it, so she invented the word herself.
This is another opportunity to increase her understanding. My feedback is to make sure she is right first. Many things will happen and do when you grow up.
When you need to wear it when you grow up, let's go to the mall and pick out what you like. Then, I told her the correct name of the milk clothes. And tell her that this word is enough for us girls to know, and we don't need to tell everyone.
Every family has many examples of similar situations, that is, paying attention to the details bit by bit, instead of talking about the knowledge of physical hygiene all day. It was made at school, not at home, but by teachers, not by my parents.
If a child knows nothing about physiological knowledge or talks nonsense when he is eleven or twelve years old, it is the parents' dereliction of duty for eleven years and twelve years, which has little to do with sex education.
Don't attribute everything to sex education.
At present, girls in Beijing generally start menarche at the age of 10, ranging from 1 1 to 12, and most of them are in grade five or six. Most girls have menstruated, wearing bras at almost the same stage, and their sexual characteristics appear earlier than boys.
In the past, some people complained that they had not received sex education when they were young, and they didn't know what to do when their menstruation came. This is not a question of sex education, but your mother has problems with her children and life.
Mothers who care a little about their children will definitely think of these personal experiences after giving birth to their daughters. About the same time, she will prepare things for menstruation in advance, and so on. When she comes, she will tell her daughter what to do. If she didn't even think of this, it shows that this mother is basically indifferent to her daughter's growth and is not in place. Or that there is something wrong with the connection and interaction between mother and daughter, then it is not a problem that sex education is not in place, but a problem of the overall mother's attitude and way of raising her daughter, which is one of the more concrete manifestations of sex education knowledge.
On the other hand, even if your mother gives you sex education according to the guidance of the media, you are still not close to her, and you still don't know what to do in case of sexual assault. In the relationship between men and women, you are either puppy love and seek love and warmth, or you are indifferent and depressed to the opposite sex, and you don't know how to face your feelings and relationships.
In short, don't treat sex education rigidly and unilaterally.
The influence and education of gender role identity
Finally, I want to emphasize the influence and education of gender role identity.
Gender is a person's social and cultural identity as a man or a woman. In addition to congenital differences, some gender prejudices and discrimination formed in social customs are manifested in primary schools.
Some American psychologists have made large-scale investigations in 1983, 1990, 1993, etc. The results show that girls in the senior and first grade of kindergarten already think that they are inferior to boys in mathematics, while most children in primary school have firmly believed that girls are good at arts and boys are good at science.
What about adulthood? Psychologist Deborah Best made a survey. She asked some college students to evaluate a paper on aerospace science and technology, which was a bit difficult for non-professionals to understand.
As a result, the same paper, when the author signed it and wrote it as a male, got a high evaluation; The author's signature was changed to a woman as soon as she saw it. The evaluation of the paper was low, disorganized and the arguments were insufficient.
This social stereotype of gender will affect children's academic performance, social behavior, self-awareness and identity, self-confidence and other aspects of growth.
At that time, many girls didn't believe or deliberately suppressed their science talents because some people said that "girls can't learn math and physics well, or girls with good grades in math and physics don't have feminine charm", and how many boys were embarrassed because of poor math and physics!
Some surveys show that the higher the educational level, the less sexism or stereotypes there are.
In the sex education we give our children at school, the content of gender roles should be paid as much attention as the knowledge of physical health, because it affects a person's psychological and personality growth.
At home, the influence of parents on children's gender roles is subtle, and parents need to consciously think about what kind of information you send to their children.
This topic is different for every family. Some families just find that men are superior to women, while others just say that mothers are better than fathers. We have no standard answer.
Let me summarize some common problems that are easy to have a negative impact on children:
Too obvious preference for boys over girls.
Don't think that boys are preferred to girls only in rural areas. Some of the cases I have encountered are high-powered cadres and families with deputy ministerial level or above, and some are well-known entrepreneurs who have made the rich list and sent their children to study abroad.
The family not only values sons over daughters, but also stresses personal dignity and family status, equality, love and division of labor between husband and wife, just like the feeling in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.
This family inheritance is undoubtedly different from the westernized atmosphere of big cities and the mainstream understanding of western countries.
It is not surprising that children who grow up in such a family will have obvious psychological and behavioral discomfort or distortion for a while.
In this case, we can't give specific suggestions. Of course, it would be nice if there was no preference for boys at home. If you can't do it, you should consult according to the specific problems of specific children.
Too much emphasis on the gender roles of men and women should be avoided, even if parents think it is correct.
For example, a man should be strong. The fact is that both boys and girls need to have the qualities and abilities of courage, tenacity, self-comfort and encouragement.
For example, girls should be careful and gentle. The fact is that all children should learn to be gentle, friendly and meticulous.
Instead of emphasizing what boys should be and how girls should be trained, we should emphasize the cultivation, character and ability that a person should have.
Especially for girls, don't emphasize the idea that "the more we have to prove to others that we are as good as boys or even better than boys". Behind this sentence is the preconceived view that others look down on me and are biased, and our actions are also to prove this goal to others, so our efforts will go astray.
We strive for our own value and Excellence, not to prove it to others. I have seen too many women, whether at home or in the workplace, always full of such breath, fighting for this breath, making people inaccessible and unappreciative.
Don't overemphasize that men and women are the same and absolutely equal.
The physiological differences between men and women are obvious at a glance, and there are indeed differences in the overall characteristics of men and women in some psychological behaviors.
For example, boys are more aggressive than girls at school and are more keen on running and fighting; High school boys tend to use violence to solve conflicts, while girls tend to speak ill of themselves behind their backs and isolate themselves; In reading comprehension and speech fluency tests, girls have a slight but continuous advantage over boys, and in visual or spatial ability tests, boys are better than girls; In mathematics, girls' calculation ability is better than boys', and boys' problem-solving strategies are better than girls'.
These differences are real. The sex ratio of children with autism spectrum is 5 1, which also shows that there are genetic differences between boys and girls.
Too much emphasis on the same and negative differences, children will disagree when they are older.
Instead of denying the differences, it is better to admit that the overall performance is different on average, but it is most important to pay attention to individual differences, know your own characteristics and understand your own abilities.
Be alert to your subconscious views on gender differences and do more self-awareness.
I have a student who is excellent in all aspects of study, work and life. My husband is very convinced of her, and a son and a daughter are taken good care of at home.
She also stressed that men and women are equal in personality, basically achieving a good division of labor and cooperation, and working life is well coordinated.
But she is often dissatisfied with her husband and feels that he is not responsible enough. Subconsciously, I still want men to be masters of the country.
When her husband really has any opinions or makes any decisions, she will immediately find fault and always prove in the end, "I still have to check, you can't do it alone."
She never realized that her performance was distorted.
There are many women around us who are like this. Influenced by family elders and social prejudice, we have to admit that although equality between men and women has been advocated since 1949, the popular and tacit concept in society is still that boys are preferred to girls, even in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Unconsciously, we have accepted this concept to some extent, which proves that we are not bad as women in all aspects, so there will be a sense of injustice and we will try our best to prove that I am still better than you.
Therefore, we sometimes struggle. At one time, we expected men to be masters. When I am the head of the family, I just need help. As a husband and teacher, you are the emperor and I am the prime minister. Then I have to prove that you are not that good. I am better than you. For a while, I want men to coax themselves, give themselves gifts and hug themselves; Later, you have to show off your arrogance and make men apologize or praise your achievements.
I hope that you, especially mothers, will reflect on whether you have this kind of entanglement. If so, solve it yourself as soon as possible, otherwise the child will be subtly affected.