Bodies are Amazing! Talking with Young Children about Sexuality

Sun. Feb. 2, 2020 ~ Unitarian Church of Montpelier

Led by Mara Iverson and Liza Earle-Centers

It was a really nice circle of parents, Lifespan Spiritual Exploration volunteers, educators, and caring adults who gathered for our discussion last Sunday. This discussion was inspired as an alternative to a full 8 session K/1st OWL class, which can have challenging attendance requirements and is currently only available in an outdated version from 1999. We have invested in a UCM lending library to accompany parents and educators on this journey, and it can be found in the vestry under the LSE bulletin board. We'll have a follow-up session sometime in April.

Mara Iverson, OWL instructor and Director of Education for Outright VT shared her expertise and knowledge, along with humor and compassion. Thank you, Mara! We'll remember that no matter what words we share with the young people in our lives, values are "caught, not taught" and so we better be living out our beliefs in the ways we interact in our daily lives with our families and with others. I talked about the idea of 'radical inclusivity' and always speaking or acting as if all different identities are present in a given room and to think of using as inclusive language and activities as possible. Below is a summary of the goals of this session--drawn largely on the original K-1st OWL curriculum.

Thank you to Mara for the great co-facilitation, and Meredith and Liz for help with set-up and clean-up.

~Liza

Goals:

To encourage parents/caregivers/educators to model positive attitudes around our bodies and sexuality
To empower parents/caregivers/educators to have healthy and open communication about our bodies, families, gender, consent, etc.
To strengthen the role of parents or caregivers as their children’s most important sexuality educators.

Important elements of sexuality education at this age level:

To strengthen and support each child’s sense of self and self-esteem.
To help children understand the place of sexuality in human life and loving.
To help children recognize and appreciate their bodies as good and beautiful, private and special.
To help children gain understanding and accurate information about human sexuality, reproduction, and gender
To help children prepare for the normal changes they will experience as they grow and develop.
To help children develop interpersonal skills that will keep them safe and healthy.
To help children learn to make decisions that respect themselves and others and that anticipate possible consequences.

Session List for K-1st Our Whole Lives

(With expansions and recommendations from us added in)

		Books/resources to support (some great ones in our LSE library)
Session 1: Our Wonderful Bodies, Part One		https://amaze.org/jr/ (Useful for all sessions on the list)
Session 2: Our Wonderful Bodies, Part Two
Session 3: Healthy Bodies, Safe Bodies		C is for Consent
Session 4: Families		Book list of diverse families. Pictures books with two moms or two dads.
Session 5: Families and Feelings
Session 6: Babies and Families		Books that celebrate adoption.
Session 7: Birth of a Baby