Friday, November 30, 2012

Edinburgh Zoo's elephant sex-education video makes kids sick

GV of Edinburgh Zoo. A ZOO’S sex education programme for primary pupils left kids feeling sick.

One young boy almost fainted when his class, from a primary school in an exclusive district of Edinburgh, were shown a graphic video of an elephant giving birth.

And the Edinburgh Zoo video left several other youngsters feeling queasy, a mum claimed yesterday.

The pupils, aged 10 and 11, from Sciennes Primary were also asked to shout out the names of sex organs on a visit to the monkey enclosure.

Anja Shiefler, whose 10-year-old daughter Ivy was on the trip, said: “The film about the elephant was quite full-on and there was one little boy who felt quite sick and was about to faint.
“Quite a few of the pupils felt a bit sick and didn’t want to watch it.”

Zoo education officer Joanna Dick yesterday admitted their Cycle of Life education programme is “no-nonsense”.
She said: “It’s our most popular lesson on offer by far. We saw almost 2500 children take part last year.
“The lesson lasts nearly two hours and it is a no-nonsense, grown-up, scientific approach to sexual education.”

An Edinburgh Council spokeswoman said: “We encourage all schools to create an environment that is creative and engaging for pupils.

“The Cycle of Life programme, which is run by the zoo, does exactly this in a fun and informative way.”

Parenst must be involved is sex education

Let's start with a beyond-dispute premise: We need to do everything possible to prevent unwanted teen pregnancy.

But should pediatricians pre-prescribe “morning-after” pills to girls younger than 17, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has suggested?

Even though I'm the mother of two teen boys, I believe that if I were instead charged with the health and well-being of two teen girls I'd be saying “Heck, yeah!”

But who am I to say that other parents would feel the same?

My neighbors are a devoutly churchgoing Hispanic couple with two sons and a 15-year-old daughter. The father of the family, a cheery Mexican immigrant who holds fast to traditional conservative religious ideas about his daughter's reproductive rights — which is to say he probably doesn't believe she has any — would surely not feel comfortable if he thought his daughter's physician would give her access to morning-after pills “just in case.”

You might be saying to yourself that this child is probably an excellent candidate for becoming one of the 55.7 per 1,000 Hispanic girls ages 15 to 19 who give birth every year — 80 percent of these pregnancies are unintended — and you'd be absolutely right.

With this terrible state of affairs, it would seem obvious that pediatricians should provide explicit, unsolicited counseling about birth control and emergency pregnancy prevention to teens, and especially girls, independent of a parent's wishes, right?

Maybe. Especially maybe in communities where teen pregnancies among minority girls are particularly pervasive. For instance, New York City's public schools face a powerful mix of high poverty, underinsured families, and teens who frequently start sexual activity before the age of 13. The schools are trying pilot programs to provide birth control and morning-after pills right in school buildings. Health officials there recently reported that parents are fine with the program.

What we're really witnessing here is the medical establishment's acknowledgement that way too many parents refuse to admit that in our highly sexualized society, they are the ones who need to provide their children with reliable information about safe sex.

Because overall averages of teen pregnancy have been going down for the last few years, there is an opportunity here to get to the root of the problem, which is less about what talks doctors should be having with their minor patients and more about what information should be shared at home.

Studies have shown that kids of parents who have meaningful and informative conversations about sex are less likely to engage in risky behaviors leading to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

If the pediatric medical establishment wants to go ahead and codify a policy that says “talk to your kids about safe sex or we'll do it for you,” it should do so hand-in-hand with general practitioners who treat parents.

In other words, as the AAP tells pediatricians to initiate these talks with kids, the American Medical Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should ask that physicians screen patients who are parents for their ability to provide their kids with age-appropriate sex education, give them a score predicting their child's likelihood to engage in risky sexual behaviors and provide them the resources to prevent such negative outcomes.

Another beyond-dispute premise: Efforts to reach kids without involving their parents in helping them make good choices will ultimately falter.