Sex Education: 3 lessons that should really be taught

I am not surprised sex education in schools has been a dismal failure.  Teaching hormonal teenagers all about human plumbing only inflames their interest in breeding. Familiarizing them with the full spectrum of sexually deviant behavior only confuses them.  Giving them condoms only encourages them to go out and do it.    None of this provides them with a moral compass to guide their behavior.  If you do not impart life wisdom to a child, they are not going to make smart choices when parents are not around.  Education should really be about preparing young people to make wise decisions on their own.  What should really be taught in sex education classes?  Let me give you a run down of some critical elements that are really being missed:

Lesson 1:  Actions have consequences.

Most young people do not think through what they do before they do it.  Every action has a consequence.  Controlling your steps is how you assure a desired outcome.  There are severe consequences to sexually immoral behavior. Teen pregnancy and Sexually transmitted diseases are just the tip of the iceberg.  Sexually immoral behavior will actually destroy you if you let it.   No one wants to really destroy their life if they can avoid it.  Understanding these consequences will keep children from making poor choices.  The wisdom of prudence is to think before you step.  If children are made smart, they will make the right choices even without your supervision.  The Bible says train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.  Decisions made are always based on the quality of information available.  Everyone really does what seems right in their own eyes.  People cannot rise above their level of understanding.  Impart wisdom to your children and they will make the right choices.  When they understand this, they will naturally follow it.  Most parents fail because they use their authority simply to restrain a child’s behavior.  It’s easier for parents to say ‘don’t do it because I told you so’ then having to explain why.  Restraint and instruction are not the same.   You can restrain behavior for a time, but this does not develop the child to make good decisions.  Educators fail because they do not allow Biblical instruction in schools.  They do not teach the wisdom of morality.   God’s way truly is the best way.  Knowing this truth really does set a person free.   If you do not understand this, then it’s the blind leading the blind.  You cannot expect your child to do better job than you are.   At best, a pupil can only become as good as his/her teacher.   Get educated and the Bible is the best place to start.

Lesson 2: Expect Kids to keep their hormones in Check

Teenagers are brimming with hormones and we are not teaching our kids how to cope with them.  Love and hormones are not the same.  Men’s craving for visual stimulation and sex is not love.  Women’s craving for affection and attention is not love either.  God is not against hormones.  After all, He made them.  Hormones may be potent and powerful, but they have no staying power to sustain relationships.  So hormones should never trump right behavior.  They are feelings to be confined to their appropriate place- the marriage bed.  The real shame of sex education is that we are not teaching our children this control.  Educators send a strong message to young people when they say abstinence does not work in restricting the spread of STDs.  Abstinence absolutely does work to prevent STD’s if one has the discipline to implement it; nothing works better.  When parents and educators don’t require from teenagers standards of conduct anymore, they will not rise to the occasion.  If we stopped insisting on standardized testing, children would not strive to learn and grow to meet those standards.  The same is true when it comes to personal discipline.   By lowering the bar, we are allowing young people’s hormones to get the best of them.  Feelings alone should never rule behavior.  Hormones can bring the worst out in people if not properly controlled.  Fail to teach a young man self-control and temperance and you will raise a generation of rapists.  Lower standards of modesty and propriety for young women and you will only downgrade their behavior into harlotry.  Hormones really are a fire.  Fires are nice and warm in a fireplace, but left uncontrolled and unconfined they will burn your house down.  Parents and educators have a responsibility to instill behavioral standards into our children.  It saves their lives and is good for society.

Lesson 3: It’s loving to be sensitive to the feelings of others.

Stoke a fire and it will only become enflamed.  A raging fire choked of it’s fuel supply always dies out.  Subsiding hormonal passions has a lot to do with keeping away from the fuel that would enflame them.  Hormones should only be awakened when someone is in a committed loving marital relationship.  The rest of the time they should be left dormant.  This protects everyone.  We even pass public decency laws and outlaw public displays of affection to respect these sensitivities in others.  If we want our young kids to behave properly, why enflame their hormones when they have no healthy outlet for expression?  Why must children be forced to learn about all the latest sexual positions and techniques long before they are even ready for marriage?  Why can’t kids just be allowed to be kids?  I am not against education, but why expose people to information long before they are really ready to learn it?  Exposure to the information only makes it harder for young kids to do the right thing when they are growing; the information is not helpful to them.  Teachers can go too far with this subject matter in a public setting.  When they do, it only makes things harder and not easier for the student.  It’s actually unloving to force something on to someone that is both unnecessary and unhelpful to the recipient at the time.  Make your classroom a bully pulpit and you will not show yourself to be enlightened; you will only show yourself to be insensitive.  There is wisdom in knowing the appropriate time and place for sharing such things.  Let people learn about the graphic details when they enter into a marriage relationships.  Otherwise, people should not be burdened with things that only make their life harder.   Education should be a help and not a hindrance.  Be sensitive to the feelings of students and you will teach them to be sensitive to the feeling of others as well.

Related Links:
Sexual Immorality: Cannot Drag to Heaven. Be Washed to be Saved.
Why Should I avoid Sexual Immorality?
Sexual Temptation:why fight the feeling?
Lust, Love contrasts defined: One Worship, the Other Charity
Why Lust always turns Kinky and Perverted
Homosexuality, Same Sex Unions: A Sin, not a Civil Right
Rape, Sexual Violence, & Abuse: Why Brute Force it when there is a better way?  
Rape, Molestation, Sexual Abuse: How God's Law Protects against it
Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Do you have to learn the Hard Way?