by A. Bailey

Created on: August 30, 2007

Around the age of puberty, sex education should absolutely be taught to children in school. Sex and the human body are subjects that are pertinent to the human life, perhaps the most important ones of all. School is supposed to prepare children for the real world. Children spend more time at school during the week than they do at home, just as most parents in America spend more time at work than they do at home.

It would be beneficial for children to learn about sex and the basics of family planning at an early age. Not all children have siblings at home or have parents with the time or education themselves to be able to teach them.

There are so many people, grown women and men, who do not have the slightest clue about natural family planning, natural child birth, and related issues. When they grow older, they become parents and they must then learn as they go. Often times, they make regrettable decisions because they are uninformed.

Breastfeeding is not widely accepted in our culture; although, it is starting to be respected a bit more. The importance and normalcy of breastfeeding should be stressed to boys and girls in high school. The girls must know that it is the best food for their babies, and the boys must know that the women need their wives' support and approval. Breastfeeding offers many health benefits for the mother as well.

School is to prepare children and young adults for the real world, and sex and child birth are real. It should not be about giving them an egg to tote around for a week to see whose breaks first and whose lasts the longest. That does not scratch the surface of the truly important issues. Our children need to know the truth, and teens should have sex education that explains issues in depth, so that they are prepared for what their futures likely hold.

Girls are not taught how to properly track their menstrual cycle using techniques such as basal body temperature and BBT charting. Natural family planning won't harm a child. They'd have to track their cycle every day. If they took birth control pills, they'd have to remember to take those every day too. What is the difference? The difference is that one is 100% safe to their bodies, and one is not. We have this wonderful non-invasive technology available at a reasonable cost, yet people do not use it.

Some schools are now handing out birth control pills. These medications are normally given by prescription with the exception of the new morning after pill, and it raises the question of how do they get away with it? There are safer ways to protect children from getting pregnant, like condoms and natural family planning techniques using a BBT and/or ferning scope. Going to planned parenthood to get birth control without parental permission is just as wacky as the school handing it out. The point that schools won't give a child a Tylenol without written permission or a doctor note, but they will give out a (dangerous) synthetic hormone pill is outrageous. The young ladies are going through puberty and growing, and the hormones interfere with the rhythm of their bodies. It "cures" acne, yes I know. It can also kill. If a child is taking antibiotics or other drugs, they can make the pill less effective and the child could still end up pregnant. What about when these women grow up and they want to have children, but the synthetic hormones have disrupted their reproductive system to the point of infertility? It happens.

Children deserve the chance to know the truth about their bodies and about life, and learning about it in school along with reading, writing, and arithmetic just makes sense.

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