WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — Kids are spending more time online and on social media than ever before. And it’s impossible for parents to know exactly what is happening in all those chats, texts and searches. Let’s face it, the chance of them running into sexual content is pretty high.
As parents we want to know where our children are getting reliable information about sex. Additionally, what kind of information are they getting at public schools.
CBS12 News looked into the sex education curriculum in Palm Beach County to figure out just how much is left for parents to fill in the gaps.
Sean Sykes has four sons between the ages of eight and 17 years old. He believes sex education should not start until the 8th grade.
“When they hear it in school, they’re going to want to go see what it is, right?” he asks. “But if you don’t consider it, talk about it in school and that younger age, they’re not going to really go looking for it.”
Dr. Rachel Needle explained that assumption isn’t quite right: “The truth is, parents want to think that children are not seeing this online, and they’re protecting them, and they know what their kids are looking at, but you don’t.”
Needle is a licensed psychologist and sex therapist. She says kids will go looking for sexual content, whether teachers bring it up in the classroom or not.
“They’re getting from peers and their older siblings,” she continued. “They’re getting it from the internet. They’re getting it from pornography, right? Do you want your kids learning about themselves and sexuality through watching porn. That’s what’s happening.”
Right now, kids are not getting much of it in school. Sex education is not mandated in Florida, which means districts don’t even have to teach it if they don’t want to. Plus, since 2023, the curriculum districts do teach must be approved by the state.
The Palm Beach County School District’s McKesson Center houses its education materials. It contains the entirety of sex education for kids in the County School District, from elementary school through high school. It’s all in five books.
In elementary school, every fifth grader gets a science book that includes one four sentence paragraph about the human reproductive system that reads, all females make eggs, and all males must fertilize those eggs, and that’s about it. There are no diagrams whatsoever.
The next year in sixth grade, when they get to middle school, all students use a science book that includes one page about the male reproductive system, one page about the female reproductive system, and a little bit about the menstrual cycle, and that’s it. It’s located all the way at the end of the book.
In high school – there’s a little bit more. There’s a biology book that all students must take. Once again, it includes one page about the male reproductive system, one page about the female reproductive system, and then a little bit about fertilization. And once again, it’s towards the end of the book.
Then, all students also have a book called “Health Opportunities through Physical Education.” All students either take a HOPE class or they take a physical education class where they use this book and it includes one paragraph under the “Preventing Infectious Disease” category, which says that all kids must remain abstinent or if sexually active practice safe sex if they want to avoid getting an STI. That’s a very small paragraph there. If you want extensive sex education, then you need to take the elective Human Anatomy and Physiology. There’s plenty of sex education text there. But that is the entirety of sex education in the Palm Beach County School District.
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Dr. Needles says that is not enough. And a parent is generally not as good a teacher as they think they are. “So, we teach children, these are your eyes, this is your nose, this is your elbow, but then come up with really silly and not accurate titles for what the genitals are, right? So, we know that when children have accurate names for their genitals, right? This is your vulva, this is your vagina, this is your penis, that they are more likely to protect themselves. they’re less vulnerable to sexual abuse, and they’re more likely to be believed if they report it, because they know how to talk about that.”
When it comes to the best time to talk to children about sex, for Needles, “(t)he answer is the time is always right.”
As far as whether parents are equipped to teach their kids about the birds and the bees, Sykes points out, “(t)hey clearly understand how it works right?”
Dr. Needle says it’s not that simple, and, even if a parent is knowledgeable, it’s next-to-impossible for parents and kids to have an entirely open dialogue about sex.
“For a lot of people, they don’t feel comfortable here, you know, talking about these topics with their parents, and part of that is actually both society and the parents’ discomfort often with the topic,” Needles said. “So, it’s beneficial to have somebody outside who has a specialty in this area.”
For Sykes, communication is key to making sure that his sons come to him.
“I have four, and they’re spread out, and I have teenage, two teenagers, and that’s probably the most challenging part of being a dad is because I don’t know. You just try to have a relationship with them growing up,” he noted. “The communication with them has to be there.”
That certainly is the point that Needle agrees the most with Sykes. But it’s important to know, if you as a parent think that what I described is too much sex ed, as part of the Parents Bill of Rights, you can contact your school’s principal and opt out of that lesson and your child will be pulled from class.
There’s practically nothing on practicing safe sex. In fact, it is state law that schools must emphasize abstinence as the expected social standard. Needle said teachers emphasizing abstinence absolutely does not lead to kids actually being abstinent.
She adds that there are benefits to getting a thorough sexual education. Whether they’re getting the information from school or from parents – the studies are clear – that the more knowledgeable a kid is about sex, the less likely they are to actually have sex. So less likely to become pregnant, have an STI, or commit sexual assault.
I want to know what you think about how much sex ed our kids are getting in school – let me know by going to my Facebook page.
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