Lifelong Sexual Education

Sexual Health Education is an important part of the physical, social and emotional development of children and young people. Comprehensive sexual health education helps the individual to acquire culturally and scientifically correct information in accordance with his / her age and to create an attitude, belief, and values for making an informed choice about their sexual life and relationships. (Yücesan, Ayaz Alkaya; 2017) Additionally, in Turkey, the rate of child bride, is between 30-35%, and the rate of sexual abuse to the children is 7.2%, hence the unhealthy and inappropriate sexuality are the reasons for our wish to apply for this project. In order to have healthy young individuals in our society, it is important to give them a healthy childhood whereas they receive an appropriate sexual education. The sexual education children and young people receive from family is very limited and incomplete with full of false information. In fact, schools are the place where children / young people spend most of their time after the family, so; the level of education they receive there in accordance with their age group is the key to have healthy young individuals in the society. Sexual education is also important for children to recognize and protect their bodies. In addition, we believe that children / young people who have received proper sexual health education will be prevented from "child marriage and sexual abuse“ and proper sex education would put an end to this vicious circle. As the starting age for sexual education, the child should be asking questions like “how did I come to the world? Where do the babies come from? Why do we call them girls/boys?” etc. These kinds of questions start to occur during the preschool education age and It is a very natural process for children to ask questions about gender and want to relieve their curiosity. It is important to give them the correct answers. Because, in the pre-school period, children discover their body. They need to be informed about the difference between men and women. It is crucial for children to find the right answers to the questions they ask about their gender. Because, from the moment we were born, our body is important to us throughout our entire life. However, the families are struggling with how to respond to questions of their children about sex education. At this point, the task falls on educational institutions and employees. It helps children to find the right answers to their questions, protect them from sexual abuse and help them to have a healthy adolescence-adulthood. In our school, we provide sexual health education for our children and their parents. Within the scope of the training we provide, we are aware that gaining a sense of privacy in early childhood is one of the most important elements. For this reason, it is aimed to teach children the privacy education, recognition of the body, protection from unwanted touches, good-bad touch, good-bad secrets, and training to provide the ability to say no; activities to recognize abuse, to deal with abuse and to report abuse. Children who can tell their parents or teachers about the disturbing behavior towards them are more likely to be protected from abuse. While practicing our activities, we include techniques such as reading books, games, music, drama, animation-evaluation, circle group discussion. Informative and educative seminars are organized for the families of preschoolers on sexual education, accompanied by experts. We send leaflets about privacy education to the families and we also reach other adults who are interested in through the brochures. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the prevention of physical or mental assaults, violence, and misuse of the child's parent or caregiver while taking legal, administrative, social and educational measures. Schools and educators have great responsibilities in this regard. In many countries, particularly in developing countries such as Turkey, there is no systematic sexual health education. On the basis of this, it is thought that sexual health education is the belief that young people will encourage sexual intercourse. (Gürsoy, Gençalp; 2010) Our aim is to popularize our sexual education studies and to develop our own program by learning sexual education studies in different countries in order to have healthy generations in the future. Hence, “How to give sexual health education to create a healthy society?” is the question we would like to discuss with you and it would be a pleasure to listen to your valuable experiences and brainstorm in this topic. Kind regards, blalalbal About Our School: We aim to make our school a national and international leader school that adopts contemporary approaches, develops with modern education opportunities, works with team spirit, is open to innovations, cares about cultural and universal values. As a result of our work for this purpose, our school has received the White Flag Award and the Nutrition-Friendly School Certificate. Our school has a Trademark Registration Certificate. We are a preschool education institution that educates individuals with high awareness through the rich learning experiences, by revealing individual differences in all areas of development, at the highest level, through school family cooperation. In our school there are 1 school principals, 2 assistant school principals, 25 preschool teachers, 2 psychological counselors, 505 students, 15 classrooms, 4 workshops, 1 library, 1 gym, 1 conference room, 1 dining hall, a large garden and 2 children's parks.