I tutor third graders at a school in South Minneapolis. While working there, I've experienced a lot of the children's curiosity about different things, such as dating. In the beginning of the year two of the students, a boy and a girl, were "dating". They ended up breaking up because the girl "cheated on him". (Don't ask me what third graders consider cheating, because I have no idea.)
Then the other day a girl asked me if I had a child and was married. When I told her no, her response was (of course), "Well, why not?" I told her I was too young for that because I was only 18. She responded by explaining to me that she sees a lot of 16 year olds who were pregnant and she didn't see a problem with that. She insisted that I should have a baby by now so I tried to explain to her how I was in college and a baby is a lot of work and how I believe you should wait until you are fully prepared to have a child. She did not fully comprehend why I did not want to have a baby so young; she just thought it was a natural part of life.
There are a lot of things that children see in their lives that they do not understand, this causes them to rationalize the world on their own. These rationalizations are often times skewed. For example, if a child's parents smoke and they are not told that smoking is bad for you, they may have the desire to be just like their parents and smoke. I believe this is one reason we should have a comprehensive sexual education course in all schools, children's rationality often times falls short of what society wants from them or wants them to be like. As I have said before, sex education should not be an opinion of whether it is right or wrong, but rather a matter of EDUCATION. It's what our school systems are there for.
What are your views on childhood curiosity and rationality? Do you think ignoring a child's curiosity can lead to poor rationality, furthering many of the sexual problems we have in our society?
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