Body-emotion education material

07.02.2022 at 11:22

Why comprehensive sexuality education for children?

Children have innately a strong self-esteem, body-esteem and trust. That must be protected and strengthened. One takes care of and protects only something one considers as valuable.
Enjoying closeness, own body and all you can do with it is healthy and increases well-being and self-esteem. We need to support this. It protects later against later appearance problems, substance addictions etc.
The sexual safety of children is not discussed nor planned or protected. But we know the statistics and the consequences of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE).
Young children are extremely interested of learning of the body, toilet practices, hygiene and how to take care of the body; children find the topic easy and funny; children have body-pride. We should not spoil them. We must stop implementing the taboo to this part of the health education. We should teach then all age-appropriate issues openly. CSE should not start only later at adolescence, when young people don’t want to listen us anymore.
Children need safety skills and knowledge of their bodies everyday with other children. They need social skills to get friends, the rules of touch, information and skills of boundaries and dignity. These are crucial in everyday life already early and not only later in life.
Adults and parents can’t all the time protect and look after the children. Sometimes they are visiting somewhere or on the internet etc.
Studies show that the taboo of not talking about genitals makes children vulnerable for comprehensive sexuality education. Only what can be said can be protected.

Promoting child development

Age-appropriate, child-centred sexuality education

Safety skills and your body

Knowledge, skills and attitude

First Aid Poster for Digital safety skills for 3-9-year-olds

How to guide young children’s safe use of media, social media behavior and digital safety skills? Where to start, when the whole digital environment and devices feel as an overly strange and a scary world? The simple language digital safety-skills poster is aimed at guardians of the youngest children and for early childhood education. The pictures make the poster also interesting to children. You can print the poster in A4 or A3 size on the wall of your home, child group or class. This nicely illustrated, colorful poster tells about everyday skills, worth going through with young children. In this way, you can promote the safety of children with smart devices at an early stage.

More info here

Droplet intervention – to prevent bullying in a child group

Young children practice interpersonal and social skills. They mimic everything they see. They also come up with unpolite ways to talk and act. Often, nasty/ugly/bad or submissive habits start unnoticed, with small moments or small drops. Often these acts are connected to someone’s sexuality or gender.

Intervention is needed even before the nasty/ugly/bad behaviour is intentional or bullying, before small drops grow into a big stream of bullying or violence. Droplet intervention is useful in preventive manner, already when someone is possibly left out, laughed at or someone’s appearance or trait is commented on in an unkind way.

Discrimination, harassment, bullying, and physical or mental violence in young children are generally not intentional, in the beginning. It can be a nonverbal, verbal, or body-hurting activity that violates another person’s mental or physical integrity.
Droplet intervention means stopping the situation and reflecting on it without accusing or labelling anyone. It is a model to provide socioemotional skills to young children in difficult, multidimensional social situations.