Not Your Cup of Tea

"It's about respect, and listening," Kraft said in his speech. "We have to make this cool." This is how we are now handling our sex education, by making it cool? Why does teaching a child, teen, or young adult about basic boundaries have to be cool? It shouldn't be. In the article, To Prevent Sexual Assault, Schools And Parents Start Lessons Early, different ways of teaching about not only sexual education but also how to prevent sexual assault are suggested; though some of them seem to be insulting the ones being taught intelligence. For example, some of our youth is now being taught about consent using an analogy about a cup of tea. Why did we have to change it to be so light hearted? Are "no means no" and "yes means yes" too gory for people these days? When given the analogy kids were laughing, not because they found the cup of tea story clever but because they found adults trying to be "cool" humorous. Obviously, the older a child gets the more serious the talk about sex and abuse should be given and taken. But at what age should we begin to talk about it? Boundaries should begin to be taught at a young age. As soon as the child understands, "yes" and "no", the lessons on personal space should start. The subject of rape and of sex itself should wait to a later age when they begin to develop. Some may believe teaching kids about it at such a young age can be helpful, but why take away their pure innocent thoughts and replace them with "adult content"? Teach them no and yes. Teach them that people can change their minds and that its ok and they should respect others wishes. As children mature into young adults, so should their education mature.

 By young teens, even pre-teens, educators should stop teaching with lighthearted things, such as the tea example given before. They need to relate to the kids, say something like, "what if that was your sister/brother, or mother/father getting assaulted?". Let that sink in, let them think about someone they care about getting hurt then ask them the question, "what if it was you hurting someone's brother/sister or mother/father?" Why would someone do that, and how can one tell the signs of an abuser? Ask them the hard questions, stop beating around the bush, they are smarter than that. Society needs to promote learning self-defense to women and men, so if the time comes they can fight back.We need to teach our generation that there are consequences to these horrendous actions and then society needs to actually enforce them. Not just, "oh kids will be kids", or the infamous, "boys will be boys". Sexual education is not one person's job to teach. It is all of ours. It's the teachers and the board of education to implicate a more serious and realistic way to show the dangers and signs of a predator and it is the parent's job to continue teaching them boundaries at home and in a day to day life. We need to stop knocking the way we educate down and peg and start raising the people being taught up a level. We need to start teaching respect for one another as soon as possible so that when someone falls into an unthinkable, horrible situation, they know the signs, know what to do and how to get out. Or even, recognize the danger in time, and save another.