My 7 year old- "List three safe adults, other then Mom and Dad, who you can go to if someone touches

[Pirate Smile]

you in a bad way".

My kids go to a Catholic Elementary School in Iowa. During the second week of school, both my 7 year old and 9 year old brought home a sheet where they had colored in a picture that is supposed to be of them followed by this: List three safe adults, other then Mom and Dad, who you can go to if someone touches you in a bad way.

We talked about who they could go to and they each put down their teacher, their Grandma and their Nana (Grandma on the other side).

This is what "sex ed" means in Kindergarten.

As a parent, I thought this was great. I didn't see the same thing from my 10 year old but she may have just filled it out on her own and turned it in (that is what she would do, just fill it out on her own).

I just thought I would give people a concrete example. This is what John McCain is criticising.

[woo me with science]

1. Thank you.

This post was needed.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

2. Yep.

John McCain is a fool. Hopefully, people don't fall for his bullshit.

[bushisanidiot]

3. From McCain's most recent ad, it appears he is 100% opposed to this type of

education to protect kids from possible pedophiles.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. Republicans would rather play politics than protect kids from pedophiles.

One might conclude.

[lukasahero]

17. Given the scandals in the Republican party, that's called self-preservation eom

[stray cat]

4. That was the way it was explained on MSNBC this morning as well

its to protect children from sexual molestation.

[beyurslf]

5. But don't you see that is teaching kids not to trust their parents and to hate family

and rebel. Soon, they will be smkoing pot and living in a sex commune.

[Barack_America]

6. Why doesn't John McCain want students to be safer from pedophiles?

This is an interesting policy question.

[lamp_shade]

8. Same program when my daughter was in 1st grade.

Good touch, bad touch, who to tell... everything. They even taught the kids how to "scream from their toes". Boys and girls were separated for part of the program. Parents were oriented first and had to give permission. My friend Rhoda said "no, not my daughter". About 2 years later, they arrested a family friend for having "private time" with Rhoda's daughter. 'Nuf said.

[hedgehog]

9. Now, if someone could only connect this to the fact that Alaska

has a high (the highest?) rate of rape and incest......

[ejbr]

10. McCain and Palin want our children to be molested!!! n/t

[barack the house]

11. Sound very sensible to me, the GOP don't like sensible it seems.

[BadgerKid]

12. GOP's thinking is so narrow

on sex and a great deal of other topics.

[Danascot]

16. The GOP are the shock-jocks of contemporary politics n/t

[stray cat]

13. So McCain doesn't believe in educating/protecting children from sexual predators

Nice guy! :sarcasm:

[CoffeeCat]

14. What I find incredibly intriguing and hopeful...

...is that your school asks the children to find three safe adults "other than mom and dad" that the child
can go to if they are touched inappropriately.

As a survivor of sexual abuse, I am often really frustrated at how society hides the fact that most perpetrators
of sexual abuse are people living inside the home--and usually that comes down to the father or stepfather.

I know that is an uncomfortable fact. It's very difficult to discuss.

However, it's so promising--from a survivor's perspective--that schools are training children to think of people
outside their immediate family as people they can tell. That way, if someone inside the home is molesting them,
they have a way to find help. So often, people say, "Tell your mother and father!" and this leaves the child
trapped and hopeless--because it the perpetrator is the father, there really is no one to tell. More often than
not, the mother is an ineffectual caregiver who is often in denial about her own sexual abuse. She choses denial
and often doesn't believe the child, or flat out tells the child to keep silent.

I've met hundreds of sexual abuse survivors and listened to incredibly painful stories. Ninety percent of the
stories I hear, are about fathers/stepfathers molesting and the mothers turning their backs on these children.
Their damage and their pain could punch a hole in the universe.

It's really hopeful to hear that schools are addressing sexual abuse within the reality in which sexual
abuse happens. These methods could help free a child, and ultimately--begin the healing process and break
the silence that enslaves so many victims of sexual abuse.

Thanks for sharing this.

[cindyw]

15. My kids are going to a Catholic school too and they had that program last year.

We had the option to opt out and notice was given. I thought it was great.

By the way, I had sex education at MY CATHOLIC school. Wasn't too hard to teach anatomy and lecture on birth control and then teach self respect and say don't have sex.

[IndyOp]

18. Learning about your body CONTRIBUTES TO having self-respect -

I learned that from an elderly Preacher from a local African Methodist Episcopal Church. She remembers being about to start tenth grade when her mother reminded her that in 10th grade she would take biology and told her that it would be challenging, that she would have to study hard, and that it was very important for her to learn biology so that she could fully appreciate the miraculous gift that God had given her - her body. On the first day of class she was dreading biology because her older brothers and sisters had told her how tough it was. The teacher passed out the English books and the history books and the math books, but not the biology books. None of the students said anything, so neither did she. A few weeks later her mother asked her how she was doing in biology and she told her mom that the teacher wasn't going to teach it. The expression on her mother's face turned stern but she didn't say anything. The next day her mother walked down to the school and had a talk with the principal and the teacher. The following day the teacher passed out the biology books and the students began studying.

Learning biology should teach self-respect and sex education classes, in my opinion, should be taught with healthy messages about how to resist peer pressure - re: drugs, sex, etcetera.

[mscuedawg]

19. Absolutely! Good touch/bad touch...and why cant

parents CHOOSE whether they want their kids in a sex ed class anyway? There ARE kids out there that wont learn "responsibility" at home...and where did teaching abstinence get Palin? Grandma to be?? THAT worked...NOT! Its not just an issue of pregnancy either...safe sex protects from STDs, AIDS, etc etc etc... Let's just hold hands and PRETEND that things are black or white and ignore the shades of gray...

BTW...I don't belive in abortion for MYSELF...HOWEVER, how dare I judge another in a predicament that I may never have had to struggle with? We're not talking abortions for birth control, Sarah...but I do NOT want to live under a govt that tells me my daughter cannot make a CHOICE if she were (God forbid) raped at 13... ugh...this just boils my blood!!!!!