Children Should Be Exposed To Sexual Education At A Young Age

Being a sexual being is more than just indulging yourselves in sexual activities. Sexuality, in more ways than one, makes us who we are and influences us through experience, education, culture, history and values.

Puberty is not the first time a child becomes sexually responsive – children are exposed to sexuality from a very young age and studies have shown that a three year old kid can understand sexuality. The curiosity is something that takes things to the next level when it comes to a child who his on the verge of hitting puberty but what about children who are younger?

Things can be extremely confusing for young children if they are being exposed to sexuality in the ways that they shouldn’t be; this is why it is even more important for us, as parents, to provide result-focused sexual education to our children.

Sexual education should be view sexual development of a child as a natural part of his growth – the path to his physical development should be cleared so that he doesn’t get confused when things get complicated. This is something Indian schools and parents lack; they think it isn’t important for their children to learn about their sexuality or that they are too young for that type of education.

According to award-winning writer Nirmal Singh Lotus, sexual education is very important for learning, development, and well-being of children.

He has put in a research on the topic and has penned down some guidelines for schools and parents so that they can understand how to easily provide sexual education to the children and make them more aware of their sexuality.

·         Well-planned sexual learning programs

There should be holistic education programs for children and should be taught by well-informed and up-to-date teachers.

·         The content should be meaningful and relevant

Students/children should be able to connect with the content and at the end, should be able to make their own decisions.

·         Sexual Identity

People who identify themselves as non-heterosexuals face a tremendous amount of problems in a country like India just because people are way too narrow minded and see sexuality through their own personal lens. This should not be the case; young children should understand their sexuality and should respect people, regardless of how they are as a sexual being.

Nirmal Singh Lotus, in his research, also stated that there is no need to be ashamed of who you are; if you are good enough in your field and are confident about yourself, then what other people think about you doesn’t matter and it shouldn’t.