Sexual Education of Children: An Overview from the Past to Present

Fatma Çalışandemir, Saniye Bencik, İsmihan Artan

Abstract

The history of sexuality starts with the history of humanity. It is interesting that although the history of sexuality is so old, sexual education gained importance only in the 20th century. Sexuality-related issues are usually issues that are avoided and are preferred not to be talked over and mentioned in our country. Hence, we cannot talk about a sexual education policy throughout the country. However, it should not be forgotten that sexual education has many individual and social benefits and a serious need for sexual education can be felt particularly in our country. When the preschool and primary programs of the Ministry of Education are examined, it can be seen that the concept “sexual education” does not take place as much as it needs to do. First of all, the definition of sexual education should be made for the children and then the educational objectives should be determined. The awareness that sexual education is more than the names of body parts, their functions, and protection and reproduction issues should be increased. The definition of sexual education may be single, but it should be remembered that the objectives may change among provinces and even among the districts in the same province. Evaluation tools developed towards families and children are needed to determine the objectives. Under the light of the data to be gathered with these tools, the program objectives should be determined and should start to be implemented immediately.

Keywords

Sex education, early childhood

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