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School students in class working with tablets
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OPINIONParentsSeptember 11, 2020

Emily Writes: Why parents needn’t fear the new sex ed guidelines

School students in class working with tablets
Photo: Getty Images

The new sexuality education guidelines aim to teach kids about healthy relationships – and what sort of parent wouldn’t welcome that? 

On Tuesday, new sexuality education guidelines were introduced in New Zealand schools. The long-awaited changes include a greater focus on consent, gender and pornography. These guidelines have been years in the making and parents and students have been asking for them for a long, long time.

The resource teachers were working from was “Sexuality Education: A guide for principals, boards of trustees, and teachers”. It was created in the year Uptown Funk was number one. It’s well and truly past its prime. In 2018 the Education Review Office put out a damning report on the state of sexuality education in schools. It’s taken until now to actually revise the original 2015 document it was based on.

The Education Review Office had last reported on sex education in New Zealand in 2007. That evaluation found many schools were not meeting the needs of students: in particular, Māori and Pasefika students, international students, students with strong cultural or religious beliefs, students with additional learning needs and students who were gender-diverse or LGBTQIA+. They found that sex education was inconsistent and schools were still not meeting minimum standards of compliance with current requirements.

We are well, well, well overdue a sex ed reboot. That’s something all parents can agree on. Maybe you’re concerned about things you’ve read by groups with special agendas – they’d have you believe the end is nigh because children are getting support with their health and sexuality questions at school. It might help to look at what will actually be taught and why these changes are important.

High-quality sexuality education is critical to children and young people’s development and wellbeing – that is something all experts in the area can agree on. Writing for The Spinoff back in 2018, Amanda Hargreaves, a teacher and parent, said, “Sexuality education is far more complex than the mechanics of sex or talking about pornography. Relationship and sexuality education should start early – the simple mantra of ‘my body, my choice’ can be taught from a very early age. Talking about friendships and caring for our bodies is something many parents are already doing with their children. Schools and the wider community can, and should, support this kaupapa.”

While you might see people telling you that parents are going to be shut out by these guidelines, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Teaching our children about life is a not something we do in isolation. Our children learn from everyone around them – their parents, their siblings, their cousins, their aunties and uncles, their teachers, their librarians, their friends, mentors… And now, in 2020, they learn from TikTok, PornHub, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat too. This needs to be recognised, and it is in the new guidelines.

Nothing has changed since Hargreaves wrote: “Parents have a powerful voice in this discussion. We can ask for better resources, more funding and support for our teachers, and a collaborative and community-driven approach to relationships and sexuality education. Teaching our tamariki about healthy relationships is a collective responsibility. As parents, we can talk to our children about their needs, our board of trustees or teachers about what they’re delivering, and our communities about how to support this kaupapa.”

The new resource says very clearly that the aim of the guide is to enable “schools to deliver effective, quality programmes covering relationships and sexuality education (RSE) to their ākonga. It describes a school-wide approach to RSE focused on the idea of wellbeing.” It then says it is “essential” that programmes are planned with school communities. This is required by the Education and Training Act 2020. Anyone who tells you differently, and insists you won’t have a say, is lying. They have an agenda.

Ultimately, whatever your views on keeping children safe, we must be led by the young people who are actually learning. They’re telling us loud and clear what they want. Listen to their voices from the 2018 ERO report, in which survey respondents said they wanted their school to:

  • Teach us more about the emotional impacts of a physical and emotional relationship with another person and to be open minded.
  • Cater to everyone’s needs whether it be religious or cultural beliefs.
  • Cover the emotional parts of it as well as the physical.
  • [Use] more realistic scenarios, all the videos and much of the coursework was way outdated.
  • Take safe sex within LGBT communities seriously and enforce nondiscriminatory attitudes within the classroom as well as theoretically.

The report said: “While the basics were covered, it was the bare minimum. The way it was taught was made to scare students instead of inform them.”

As parents we have a responsibility to know better and do better. There are few parents in 2020 who believe the sex education they received as teenagers was of a high quality or even adequate. I remember being told I was a toothbrush. The toothbrush was passed around and we were then asked – “Would you put it in your mouth now? After everyone has touched it?” That should cause outrage.

What is absolutely not outrageous is calling a student by their preferred name. As an adult I’m often asked, “Do you prefer Em or Emily?” This is common courtesy and it’s something we already did at my school in the final years. Yes, it relates to gender, but it’s not hard to extend respect to children who are gender diverse. To not do that is to explicitly say, as an adult, that you want to hurt a child by not granting them the simple respect you provide others.

Much has been made of the idea that we allow young people the right to determine their own identity in relation to their sexuality or gender. If as a parent you’re willing to accept and love your child only on the proviso that they remain exactly as they are at birth, or insist they are exactly as you wish them to be even if it causes them deep pain, then you should probably have looked at getting a dog rather than having a child.

When you hold your baby in your arms after they’re born, you make a promise to them. To always love them, to always protect them, to always care for them. You do not put caveats on that based on their gender and sexuality. We know there are many parents out there who are not safe for children. We should not cater sexuality programmes in schools to them. Just as we should never be our child’s first bully, we should not design education around the whims of bullies.

The guidelines are not plucked from the sky. They acknowledge Aotearoa New Zealand’s international legal commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006).

If you feel that your parenting is not in line with literal human rights then I’m sorry, but your parenting is the issue, not sexuality education guidelines.

Ultimately, these guidelines are all about relationships. Your relationship with your child is a blueprint for their future relationships. And just like any relationship, now is the time to trust and listen. The kids are telling us what they want, and what they need. We need to listen. We need to trust them.

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The only gift guide you’ll ever need
The only gift guide you’ll ever need

ParentsSeptember 3, 2020

A Father’s Day guide to the Dadliest gifts of all

The only gift guide you’ll ever need
The only gift guide you’ll ever need

Stuck for ideas this Father’s Day? Amanda Thompson rounds up a small sample of the best gifts (plus jokes!) for the dad in your life. 

Dads are great, they’re nice to have around. Or so I’ve heard.  I’ve always been a bit vague on the finer points of having a dad since mine was more of a biological footnote than a day-to-day reality. For those of you who can also relate to having to turn away with a trembling lip whenever that kid on the old Spark ad googles “what to do on Father’s Day”, I have good news. I’ve discovered that being a dad is not gender nor biologically specific, it’s simply A Way of Being. “Dadding” is more of a philosophy than a parental status I reckon – more about how you live life than how you once spent two minutes giving life, if you will.

Anyone can embrace Dadlife™! I know I have, and I’ve found it generally more satisfying than my other option, Mumlife™, which seemed to involve a lot of anxiety about organic greens and the whole sociopolitical and pedagogical state of the education system while being weight shamed by Lululemon and ripped to shreds on social media for using tap water. Fun, but not for me.

Moving over to the Dadside means being able to be proud of my Dadbod (why yes Kmart, I will buy that size 18 bikini, wear it openly at the beach, and slap my gorgeous white belly in front of my kids while proudly exclaiming “still got it!”), being able to have hobbies that don’t include being cruel to my Dadbod (why would you take up Boxfit in a world where furniture with built-in cup holders and the History Channel exist?), laughing uncontrollably at puns which I will then repeatedly tell you until you want to smother me in my sleep, shushing my kids when the Six O’Clock News comes on, and refusing to talk about difficult emotions. Or anything, really. I like it very much.

In celebration of my newfound Dadliness, this Sunday I am expecting a welter of excellent gifts that revolve around relaxing my aching back that is being slowly crushed under the weight of family responsibilities on a plush recliner with a pop-out footrest. I would also like no small talk (unless we’re talking about fart jokes, in which case go hard). So here’s a small sample of the best in dad gifts and accompanying joke menu for the dad in your life, whoever he/she/they may be:

Beer glass 

Price: $23.95 (Zazzle.co.nz)

A beery good glass (Photo: Zazzle)

When it comes to beer, nobody knows what a dad’s favourite brand is because the first dad rule is that the cheapest deal is always the best deal. Dads don’t brand buy, they price buy. Dad’s favourite beer is whatever’s on special at the supermarket that week. It probably comes in a can, which is fine because it then gets tipped slowly, at a 45-degree angle, into this special glass with an expression of extreme concentration. 

Matching dad joke: “Ahhh. How good is this beer, aye? I’ll tell you. It’s beery, beery good.” Dad will carefully put down the beer to mime out a drum and cymbal ‘badoomkisssssh!’ After looking around the rest of the family with a delighted smile (not returned) the dad will now drink the beer with complete satisfaction.

Roast Pork Crackling

Price: $10 at any roast shop

The perfect pork crackling (Photo: Amanda Thompson)

I’ve yet to meet a dad who cannot be won over by a good roast dinner. It’s not hard to roast a lump of meat and hack it into slices; the tricky bit is, of course, getting the crackling to crackle evenly without burning or turning into a hard rubber shell. I’ve spent years trying to consistently get that right.

Pro tip: make sure the crackling layer is dry and salted. Score the fat layer with a knife, while your resident dad hangs about, doubled up with uncontrollable laughter as they try to force out “score the meat? About a five outta ten!” Rub in a lot of oil, cook hot and if all else fails, cut the crackling off the meat while it rests and grill the everloving shit out of it.

Just kidding! Real pro tip: don’t bother. In some things culinary, it’s better to leave it to the experts. The greasy bag of golden goodness pictured above came straight from my local roast meals takeaway shop for $10. The cook/owner shall remain nameless or I fear within six months they will be swept into appearing coyly in the NZ Herald’s food pages, wearing a grey linen apron and spruiking their boutique eatery in Ponsonby that specialises in $60 deconstructed slow batch-cooked Maldon salt-rubbed craquelins de porc where you can never get a booking for one of the three tiny tables.

Matching dad joke: Every time a dad ever – and I mean ever – eats a pork-related product, they must eagerly insist it is seafood. The rest of their family will coldly pretend they can’t hear, clench their teeth and possibly visualise lunging across the table and stabbing the dad with their own steak knife, because they’ve heard this one so many times before. But that’s ok, that’s normal. Dads don’t need an audience finding them funny to know they are damn well hilarious. Eventually, an innocent bystander will walk into the trap and ask why pork is seafood, and the answer will be, of course: “Because whenever I see it, I eat it!” Dad will now fall off their chair with mirth. 

Lawn Aerator Sandals 

Price: $21 (Wish.com)

The answer to the question of ‘how to make boat shoes even more dad’ (Photo: Wish)

Is a dad even a dad if they don’t have very strong feelings about fine fescue and mower blade heights?  This ridiculous gift is a total winner because of the skilful combination two great dad loves – owning a very specific tool for a very specific job, and having a super-luxe lush lawn – into one awful sandal that any non-dad person would be too ashamed to buy, let alone wear. Be prepared for a very long and excited lecture about how and why aeration improves turf, complete with some miming out of dad’s best ever lawn maintenance anecdotes. Good times.

Matching dad joke: “‘This grass is a bit patchy said the gardener,’ looking forlorn.” Your dad will need to clutch your arm to actually hold themselves up they will be so weak with laughing.

Dad’s Own Island With None of You Lot On It

Price: $4,553,067 will get you Motu Teta, a private island currently for sale in French Polynesia with no people, phone or internet. Nice.

Motu Teta (Photo: Vladi Private Islands)

If your dad says “Yeah nah I’ve already got everything I need” when you ask what they want, it’s OK to ignore them. Yes, they might well have two pairs of shoes (dads will never understand why anyone needs more than two pairs of shoes) and one full wall of the shed covered in carefully traced tool outlines so they can instantly see which screwdriver you never bloody put back in the right bloody place after “borrowing” it to dig out your Jay Jays gift card that still had a $9 credit from that tiny gap beside the passenger seat, but I bet they don’t have their own island. You can never go wrong with primo real estate and nothing says “thanks, Dad” like a whole landmass with no fools on it to ask for the last scorched almond, touch the Sky remote, or generally annoy dad when there’s a Great Railway Journeys marathon about to start on UKTV. 

Matching dad joke: Everybody dad knows will receive at least one postcard (probably with a map of the island on the front onto which dad will have marked an X in biro and labelled it ME!!) All of them will be signed off “SEA you soon!” and quite possibly sprinkled with tears of laughter. Dad will arrive home before the cards do because they chose the cheapest postage option. 

All Of These Books From My Local Op Shop

Price: $5 for as many as you can carry

Bargain books for dad (Photo: Amanda Thompson)

Dads are old enough and wise enough to know that a well-bent spine on a paperback means you’re looking at a modern literary masterpiece. More good clues are single-word all-caps titles and books called The Something of the Something. Keywords to look out for include “conspiracy”, “night”, “fire”, “dawn”, “blood”, and anything from martial arts or the Greek alphabet (ie Delta, Omega.)

Matching dad joke: “This book is about hands. It’s a real page-turner!” The dad will now throw back their head and guffaw silently for several seconds, eyes tightly closed with just one small tear of hilarity sliding down their face as the room quickly empties.

A Dog They Definitely Don’t Want 

Price: Your position as Favourite Child 

Getting your dad a dog is risky as he may possibly end up loving the new dog more than you. Just like you, a dog is a goofy, lovable dumbass with little emotional regulation and no current life goals beyond filching the last spoonful of prawn fried rice. But at least a dog won’t call dad at 3am drunk-crying that they need a top-up to catch an Uber to get home, or make snarky remarks about boomers when the iPad gets confusing. Use this gift with caution.

If you do decide to get them a dog, go to the SPCA website to find your nearest dog who really needs a reliably kind, patient human with an armchair big enough for two. In other words, a dad.

Matching dad joke: Dad will name the dog Chewbarker just so they can wear one of those t-shirts from Kmart with Han Solo on it when they go to the dog park in the desperate hope someone will ask about it, at which point they may spontaneously combust with joy. They will also start calling their Prius the Millennium Falcon. You will only have yourself to blame.

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