|
|
|
News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
|
____________________________________________________________________________
November 2005
Reviewed by Jane Evans
Sex Education: How to Guide Your Child through the Minefield by Jan Bracken Essence Publishing, Belleville, ON, 2004; $19.95 CND, $14.95, USD Trade Paper, 222 pages, ISBN 1-55306-771-1
For teens to successfully navigate the minefield of sexuality in our culture today, research has found, surprisingly, that they still need their parents. And yet the time spent by parents with their children has drastically decreased in the last few decades. Research has shown that 50 percent of children age 12 – 15 would like their parents to be their main source of advice and information on issues of sexuality. In reality, this only happens with 8 percent of children.
Janet Bracken, a parent with a social work background, is a dedicated advocate for more effective sex education curricula that have greater accountability to parents. She has served on a sexuality curriculum resource writing team and encourages parents to prepare themselves and their children for what lies ahead in today’s sex education programs.
This book will encourage parents to nurture the personal growth of their children. It explains the facts of teen sexual activity, sex education curricula in our schools and the flawed philosophies that have guided children’s sexual education over the last quarter century.
This is a truly Canadian volume that employs predominately Canadian statistics, information and research. A few American and British studies are included as well. It is noteworthy that the results are very similar across all three countries.
In the opening chapters you’ll become familiar with what families of faith are up against in sex education in today’s society. Bracken says, “For parents who are nurturing in their children, an appreciation for the timeless importance of personal virtue, social responsibility, and religious faith their first priority is living with moral integrity.” This cannot happen within our current sex education curricula, as it is taught from a values neutral, morally relative perspective.
Chapter 7 “Equipping Our Children for Sexual Virtue” takes you through the ages and stages of child development from birth to teen years, providing examples of what the parent should be teaching and modeling at each of these stages. Bracken outlines when various aspects of sex education occur in school curricula so that parents can teach their children ahead of the school and “…prepare them with your own positive message about the design for sexual intimacy between a loving husband and wife....” She adds, “The parent must provide the moral context for sexuality as well as information on sexually transmitted diseases and the weakness of contraception methods,” as they are not getting enough sound information about this in school.
The author encourages the use of language that refers to sexual virtue, purity, virginity and chastity since students do not receive this in the public schools. Bracken states, “It’s imperative that we lift our children’s sights higher than mere ‘safer sex.’”
Bracken’s chapter on “Sex Education at School” is a must read. It compares the so-called “comprehensive” sex education curricula with abstinence-only curricula and examines research from the last 15 years on these two models to see which is more effective in decreasing teen pregnancies and STD’s. She also teaches good techniques for working with your child’s public school.
This book will be a valuable resource to all parents of faith communities with school-aged children and should be placed in all school libraries, both public and faith-based, as well as libraries in places of worship.
|
|||
|
|
|
Copyright The Anglican Planet © 2005 |