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11:29 a.m. • 2-11-12

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Carolina Parent

Staff members of Carolina Parent magazine provide insight, tips and suggestions on making the most of family life.

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Why sex ed in schools?

Parents of N.C. public school students may have a choice in what their children learn about sex education under a bill that cleared the state Senate Tuesday.

The bill, which would require all school systems to offer comprehensive sex education, goes back to the House where legislators will try to resolve differences between the version of the bill they originally sent the Senate and what has emerged yesterday, WRAL reports.

Currently, abstinence-until-marriage is the curriculum offered for nearly all 115 state school districts. But under the House version of the bill, schools would be required to teach two separate programs—abstinence and comprehensive sex education—and parents would be required to fill out a permission slip for their child to get either of the two programs or to have no sex education at all, WRAL reports.

Who can argue with so many choices? Every parent now will have a say in what sex education his or her child receives. For many parents, talking about sex with their own offspring is difficult. For teens, it’s downright embarrassing. The fact is, sex remains a taboo subject. This bill would allow parents to choose for schools to provide the foundation of this education, opening the dialog between parents and children.

The need for sex education is apparent: North Carolina is consistently ranked ninth in the nation for teen pregnancy rates, a place that continues to hold steady, according to N.C. Healthy Schools, an initiative of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction and the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

Obviously, it’s best if teens wait until marriage to have sex, but whether all teens are going to do so is a question already answered based on the statistics. Isn’t it better for them to be prepared and protected so as to avoid an unexpected pregnancy? Imagine your 16-year-old son or daughter with a newborn baby.

Interested advice on parenting teens? Read CarolinaParent.com's Books to Help Parents Survive, and Guide, Teens.

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8 Comments


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my parents didnt teach me I learned from my friends in school

Fairplay, how do you know that most parents talked about sex to their kids during the 70's in Chicago?

States with the Top 10 pregnancy rates among ages 15-19: Nevada, Arizona, Missiissippi, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas. Apparently warm weather contributes to teen pregnancy a great deal ;)

Even in the 1970's in Chicago most parents talked to thier kids about it and the schools taught was was called hygene class. This taught us how to be proper about our bodies and how the insides work and how to prevent pregancy. This was progressive but we had no where near the prgnancy rates they had down in the bible belt even then. Knowledge is power and kids will do it. Parents need to get real and face it.

My daughter has had sex ed since she was 2...each year that she gets older and more mature...I teach her more..I have taught her the slang and the correct way to call everything...She had sex ed in 5th grade and she told me she knew most of what was said in class because I had already taught her...knowledge is power....in this day and age..children need to be taught and given the correct information...

I was taught the pull'n'pray method.

Kids get lots of incorrect health-related information from their peers and even their parents. This misinformation can be more dangerous than having no information. The material my class learned on this subject at school in the 1980s was much better than what my parents or peers could or would teach me, and I believe it benefitted our health and welfare.

Why sex ed in schools.... because parents are too lazy or too irresponsible to explain it to their children themselves. So they let the state indoctrine their children into the "correct" sexual aspects of our world. YIKES!

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