Raising Sexually Aware And Responsible Kids
Author: LawSphereX
Category: International Law
Published:
Updated:
RAISING SEXUALLY AWARE AND RESPONSIBLE KIDS
Priyanshi Jain, BA LLB, NMIMS, Indore
ABSTRACT
This article emphasizes the urgent need for comprehensive sex education, particularly in the Indian context where the topic remains largely stigmatized and avoided. It highlights the psychological, emotional, and physical changes adolescents undergo during puberty, and how the lack of proper guidance can lead to confusion, shame, and risky behavior. The essay argues that in the digital age, children are often prematurely exposed to inappropriate content, making it crucial for adults—parents, teachers, and policymakers—to take responsibility in educating them on topics such as consent, contraception, gender identity, body image, and sexual safety. It calls for the integration of structured sex education into school curriculums, regular awareness camps, and the creation of safe, open environments at home.
The article concludes by urging collective action from all sectors of society to raise informed, respectful, and emotionally intelligent youth for a safer and more inclusive future.
RAISING SEXUALLY AWARE AND RESPONSIBLE KIDS
The sexual desires are the basic animal instincts that every human possesses, which start to go high up during puberty and the hormonal changes takes the intelligence and rationale away from the teen. Teenagers go through a lot of physical and emotional changes during puberty. Making them sexually aware will help them in understanding what’s happening to their bodies, which can reduce confusion, fear and shame. Educating teens and even children below and around teen age is a very vital action that most of the countries, schools, books, teachers and parents are missing on.
If we talk specifically about India , here this very topic of sex education is very laid back and is considered a topic to hide from children to keep it as private as possible, but the older generation does not understand the intricacies of the digital age the children are exposed to sexually explicit content which is generally termed “inappropriate” to be shown to children , the peer group and digital devices on their fingertips expose them to such stuff way before they should ideally come across such things and that to in a wrong or negative way, so is it not better that we as elders teach them about all this, answer their questions and tell them what is right , what is wrong , how can they gain control over their instincts and desires ,etc.
As the elderly we are burdened and obliged to teach the younger ones values , etiquettes and the mode of conduct of society then this too is our responsibility to teach the younger one about the value of consent , about contraception, about gender identity , body image , conscious decision making , relationship decisions , sexual offences , sexually transmitted diseases , about good touch and bad touch , about friendly and inappropriate touch and behaviour, also about body shaming, racism, and rude comments that can have a lasting impact on minds of younger children, body positivity, moral and good conduct, etc.
This age is the cornerstone for the overall personality development of an individual, how they behave , how they think, how they perceive sensitive topics how much they are concerned about the feelings of others , about their sorrow and condition , all of this is based on how a child was handled and taught during puberty and initial ages of their childhood, because during these initial stages a very small incident like witnessing an accident can have a lasting and prolonged impact on the minds of the individual , it can also have an impact on development of fears , interests , hobbies and passions of the kid therefore this age is also termed as moulding clay which can be given any shape easily.
As we are observing the general trend in the world many sexually violent offences are being committed by children in or around the age of puberty, generally against family or friends because of lack of awareness regarding what is right and what is wrong. Sex, reproduction, and physical intimacy are generally perceived in a negative way because of the stigma around the topic, the way it is kept away from children leads to them thinking it is something bad or unnatural and then they tend to satisfy their hormonal desires through inappropriate or may be illegal channels which can further deteriorate their thinking, career and overall life. Schools, family environment, academic curriculum needs to widen its scope to incorporate all of these topics.
Teachers are generally old aged and are not comfortable in talking about these things ,it will take some time to make them comfortable and ready for it, to address this problem right away, sex education camps every 6 months need to be organised in schools , there should be a counsellor in school to deal in between these scheduled camps.
For children living in hostels, boarding schools and in orphanages, this education holds more value because they have to live around same aged people having similar desires and questions therefore the government should take initiative to lead a campaign and teach the whole young population about this crucial yet sensitive topic, because as we suppress these topics more the child's curiosity rises with more force just like a spring therefore it is important that their questions are addressed by correct forums at the correct time guiding them to the right path ahead. Yoga and meditation shall be taught in schools and shall be practiced at home to increase abstinence and control the animal instincts.
Parents generally abstain from talking to their children about these topics, because children see them as their ideal they are also afraid and uncomfortable talking about the same, this is also something that needs to be changed because creating a friendly, comfortable and healthy environment for children is a part of parenting, to solve this issue at present we can arrange informal chit-chat sessions of the teen with any family member with whom they are comfortable they can be elder cousins , sibling , uncle , aunty or even a family friend with whom they can talk comfortably without hesitation and fear making them feel these topics are not shameful and can be talked about can be discussed to create a friendly environment in their homes further when they make their families.
In India it has been made a very secretive topic a lot of stigma and taboo is attached to it making it something children talk amongst themselves only, learn from unauthorised sources and are unable to vent out when needed, this mentality should not pass to the next generation, and this can happen only through sex education, making children well versed with the topic making they feel free and comfortable to talk about it. Let us all come together, from government to, teachers, to academic planners, to NGOs, to doctors, to parents for raising sexually aware and responsible children, to make the upcoming world a more comfortable and friendly home for them.