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Cellphones and Sex Education
Wed, 05/06/2009 - 21:47 | EducationMany states have started using an innovative way to connect with teens: cellphone texting. A New York Times article identifies several states, including North Carolina, who have set up such programs:
The Birds and Bees Text Line, which the center started Feb. 1, directing its MySpace ads and fliers at North Carolinians ages 14 to 19, is among the latest efforts by health educators to reach teenagers through technology—sex ed on their turf.Sex education in the classroom, say many epidemiologists and public health experts, is often ineffective or just insufficient. In many areas of the country, rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases remain constant or are even rising.Now, health experts say, intimate, private and crucial information can be delivered to teenagers on the device that holds millions captive: their cellphones.Professor Bull, the Colorado expert on technology and reproductive health information, says that such services have benefits but also limitations.They are great for referrals and short answers to quick questions, she said. But unlike the California model, which can reach thousands automatically, these one-to-one text lines rise and fall on human interaction.
Why should or shouldn’t such methods be used to educate teens beyond the classroom?
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Comments
Precaution is better than regrets!
I can see the argument on both ends of the spectrum here. Parents are worried about not being able to control the conversation that kids are having with strangers through a program access through the cell phones.
I understand the plight of the parents and I also understand and have experience that parents are not always willing to talk with their kids about sex. This is a subject that most parent fear of having a conversation about with their kids.
I think if parents would be more acceptable in having this conversation, without being bias, maybe some of our kids would be comfortable in doing so. As great as abstinent sounds, it’s not top priority on teenagers to do list.
When a young attractive teenage male approaches a young lady, if talk of sex has never been had or if it has been more of a one-sided conversation of don’t do this lectures, then you can expect your teenage girl to fall right into the arms of her first prince charming, or so she thinks. Boys at that age have one thing in mind, feeding their uncontrollable hormones. If parents would stop patting boys on the back, telling them it’s okay to have sex and tell the young ladies not to have sex; maybe we can improve our communication skills to our children. Some parents will give the teenage boy condoms and ridicule the teenage girl if she thinks about having sex.
Teenagers need to be taught on how to protect themselves when having sex. No matter how much we would like to think that these kids will do the abstinent thing, we all know that’s the biggest wish a parent could have.
When I was growing up my parents biggest mistakes was not telling me about sex. The conversation about sex was not allowed in our household. Back in the day neighborhood nurses made house visits concerning birth controls to families in the community. During a visit to our home one day, I remember the conversation as if it was yesterday, the nurse told my aunt to consider birth control for us, being it was five girls in the home, and my aunt reply was no, not today, tomorrow, or the next day. The nurse looked very concerned about how my aunt rejected the idea without even listening to details. She quietly ended the conversation and left. But that was a graved mistake on my aunt’s part. Rest her soul, but I know if she could have relived that moment she would have made a different choice. It’s not an easy subject but a necessary subject to have with your kids- this way it allows a conversation on what the child is thinking concerning sex... My aunt was a nurturing and protective woman. She thought what she was doing was right to the best of her ability as a parent and what she was taught. I don’t regret my auntie’s way of nurturing us but that was one thing she fell short on…
Re:
Thanks for this thoughtful post, you have raise a very good point, this is the time to do some thing positive which can be helpful to stop this ridiculous, i hope your post will be helpful in this, thanks and keep it up.