From the very beginning of our work at Sahas,
we have always been asked whether we could also do workshops with parents on
sexuality education, what about those children who are of age below 10 years
and so on! We too felt a need to create gender sensitive and inclusive
environment for the adolescents who engage in our gender, sexuality and
reproductive health program. The students/participants spend most of their time
in either home or school; both of the contexts influences their learning,
growth and development.
Initially, with a belief that a person with a
specific identity can engage or build conversations effectively on the issues
related to their identity, we invited parents to support us in creating a
curriculum that could provide necessary tools and language to make
conversations on sexuality education with their children easy and without awkwardness.
However, while we were sharing experiences of having such conversations with
one of our acquaintances – they said, “How I wish you could speak to my parents
too! You people make these conversations seem so easy, uncomplicated and fun
filled”.
It was heartwarming to see parents joining the
workshop from Maharashtra, Delhi and Noida with an intention to engage with
their children but they struggle with how to start the conversations without
being invasive, or are they oversharing the information or what to share at what age and many a times they feel that
information provided by them is not satisfactory.
The
introductory workshop began with us sharing our intention and objective behind creating
this session, followed by inviting the participants to introduce themselves. We did a quick expectation
mapping from the parents to understand why they felt the need to join this
session. This included – finding the confidence to initiate conversations with
their son as the parent felt unprepared, some suggestions to interact with the
adolescent daughter who seems aware of the issues and how to deal with
questions at a younger age of 4-5 years.
The session had both father
and mothers so it seems indispensable to bring out ‘influence of gender in
parenting’ – the first response was as long as the child feels safe and open to
ask question, it doesn’t matter who they ask question!
“I feel both the parents
should be able to engage on the issues because if they don’t then certain
awkwardness and taboos linger”
Another mother brought out a
very interesting dynamic to the conversation when she said that it’s her
husband who knows all about what is going on with daughter, he gets pad for
both of them and also keep a tab on menstrual cycle. Her daughter and son both
feels very comfortable about it.
In the next part, as we
invited participants to share on what they wish to learn from sexuality
education, lot of interesting connotations came up. Like when a child doesn’t really ask
questions but state things they have watched on television or around them –
husband and wife kiss on lips, Boys stand and pee; why girls can’t do that!
Also there was question around curiosity – like one of the parents pointed out
that their child is very curious, so she asks questions and when they answer,
she asks again and this chain follows, there is no end to it and many a times
she seems unsatisfied with the answer.
One of the things that came
up was slangs and abuses – f*** or b**** which are derogatory as shared by
parents but the children find them cool and interesting! There is too much
distress to make the child understand that these are not right words or we shouldn’t
be using them.
It was very heartening to
see parents getting comfortable and were open to share things made discussions
engaging. The session processed from ‘what does oversharing means to parents’
to ‘dos and probable don’ts’ while communicating with the
child/adolescent/teenager’.
I was amazed by one of the
incidence shared during the session where the parent answered the question in
detail to the child; now the child is very curious and interactive so they went
and shared with their friends while some adults were sitting including their
grandmother. The parent didn’t mind giving the answer but was wary of the
reactions received by their child from the people around. The concern about
what her child would feel weighed above anything and I must say this parent is
absolutely on the right track of parenting! Hats off.
In the next part while
sharing about tools to engage on various topics, one of the parents mentioned
how she has talked about taboos around periods and have asked her daughter not
to follow all this false beliefs but her grandmother says the opposite. At the
same time, she herself can’t stop following the beliefs because of the
ingrained mindsets and what her own mother taught her. This is one of the best
examples which initiated a much needed conversation on how different things
said by adults can be confusing to the child and how we can negotiate and still
support them in taking the best decisions while engaging on sexuality
education.
As the session followed, lot
of other fears and questions came up; one being that ‘I totally trust my
daughter not to see bad stuff on internet and TV. However I am very curious to
know what she does on internet as she spends lot of time there. I don’t want to
invade her privacy but wish she could just tell me. I have asked her but she
said it’s nothing bad’
This is where we brought out
the children’s perspective – there are two things; one she may be watching
things that seems inappropriate to the parents but as long as she feels safe to
watch it- it’s okay; also the child might think that parents would be judging
them for what they do on internet courtesy our upbringing and messages we
receive from our society. Another thing is with open conversations, normalizing
the so called tabooed topics, she would take some time to be okay with sharing
things and even then it is okay for child to keep few things to themselves
there is nothing wrong in that.
‘We were watching an English
movies and there was kissing scene. My husband is not very comfortable so he
asked my son to close eyes!’ Interesting but can we ensure that he does that
every time such scenes come up? Also it’s not necessary to jump right on ‘sex’
part of sexuality education – we can start taking small steps, make these
conversations more often normalizing them and at the same time work on our own
ideas, mindset and beliefs that stop us from communicating with our child
making the conversations unnecessarily awkward!
It’s rightly and truly said
that gender is an indispensable part of sexuality education- the question was
raised that when the parent talks to boys about sex – they are all excited,
jumping and full of questions while girls are silent, listen carefully. From
our experience of working with all girls and all boys group , we could explain
this and also emphasis that being eager is not bad but can we make these
conversations comfortable so that girls are more participative and are not
conscious of what would people think about them!
I am so grateful for all the
parents who participated, brought out so many questions, curiosities,
vulnerability and a desire to have open communication with their child so that
they are more equipped with sexuality education. One of the amazing things
about this session was that despite our call was disconnected thrice due to
less time for meeting, the parents keep joining back on Sunday evening. I
couldn’t be more happy and thankful that our workshop culminated on such a
bright note!
Dan Oswald has rightly said, “Communication
must be HOT- That’s honest, Open and Two-way”
