What's Love Got To Do With It Too?

Listening to Woman's Hour this morning, I wasn't really surprised to hear that recent research suggests that young people are dissatisfied with the sex education they receive at school. I do remember my own, which was so clinical and so focused on animal reproduction and the horror of STDs (complete with a film showing advanced syphilis) that my best friend and I were left wondering why anybody ever dared to, or even wanted to have sex... But that was many years ago, and it was a Catholic school, and I did think things had moved on a bit.

And, the young people surveyed also said that their parents hadn't helped much - in fact most of their information had come from the tv, the internet and their peers. So that hasn't changed either. But what struck me most, was that they had said that what they needed was less of the biology and the ‘facts' and more opportunity to talk about the more complex issues around making relationships, recognising when someone is trying to use or exploit you - and all of the feelings associated with intimacy.

Perhaps that shouldn't have surprised me either. My own son's account of his ‘Personal relationship' input at secondary school consisted of the class being invited to call out all of the names that might be used to describe the male and female reproductive organs - which a ‘nurse in a white coat' then wrote on a flip-chart - to great hilarity and embarrassment all round.

That had reminded me of my experiences in HIV and AIDS counselling in the late 1980s, when we were encouraged to talk to gay men in a graphic way about the mechanics of safe sex. I quickly discovered that not only were my own pre-conceptions about love between two men challenged, but also that this approach lacked any sensitivity, and completely overlooked the feelings and emotions which are at the heart of meaningful sexual relationships.

It did make me think once again that the classroom and more formal approaches to teaching are not the best place for this kind of learning to take place. And it did make we think about how difficult it can be to have this kind of discussion with our own children. Or with our parents - even as adults. And because it does require skill, confidence and trust, aren't we asking alot of the foster carers and residential workers who have to take on this role with young people who are particularly vulnerable, and are in most need of the right kind of advice and support?

The new, and very welcome, Fostering regulations and standards require carers to help children and young people to understand and make their own decisions about taking risks and keeping safe as any ‘reasonable' or ‘responsible' parent would do. But if the teachers and the parents are clearly still not getting this right, are we thinking enough about how they will take this on?