Why teach youth about sex and healthy relationships?

MW En white bgIn schools all across New Brunswick we have Sex Ed. Fliers are hung all around schools, talking about safe sex and STI’s, but we aren’t really being taught anything at all.

For generations the ‘Sex talk’ has been left in the hands of parents to educate their children. Nowadays, with children learning from other kids at school, the education system has taken it upon itself to teach about healthy relationships. Putting teachers in charge of giving a classroom full of students the talk that’s known to be the most awkward one to have is really stressful and put off as much as possible by the teachers.

With movies and books coming out like Fifty Shades of Grey, sex and healthy relationships are now one of the most complicated topics going. It needs to be talked about more. Teenagers and preteens are in the most rebellious, experimental periods of their lives. They need to know there is a huge difference between a healthy relationship and a compliant relationship.

We can’t put off Sex Ed in classrooms anymore. Being open about a person’s own sex life, and teaching a teenager that there is a healthy safe way to have one themselves is a difficult task, but somebody has to do it and find a way to do it unbiasedly.

– Anonymous, Making Waves participant, Grade 12