How to Teach Kids About Sex, Drugs, and Religion

Parents are finally being asked to teach their children about sex, drugs, and religion, according to a new study.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that more than 3.4 million parents reported that they had a child enrolled in a school district’s sex-ed curriculum in 2017.

More than 7 million parents and nearly 6 million school staff members reported they had enrolled their children in a sex-education program in 2017, up from 7.2 million in 2016. 

Read More According to the NCES, parents were asked to include a description of the sex-educational curriculum, including a timeline, the teacher’s position, and the child’s age.

In some states, parents can also ask their child to participate in a sexual-education class that includes a sex and drug education component.

The NCES also found that in 2017 nearly 4.4 billion parents were exposed to sex education materials, and about 7.5 million parents had participated in a state or local sex- education program.

About one in six children aged 5 to 17 are exposed to the curriculum in public schools, according a 2016 survey by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

The survey found that at least 8 million of these children attend schools that don’t have sex- and drug-education programs, and that more kids are exposed in schools that do.

A majority of parents in the US surveyed by NCES said that they have no desire to discuss the topic of sex or drugs with their child.

About a third of parents said they are concerned about discussing their child’s personal issues, such as drug use and abortion, with their children.

About 2 percent said they were concerned about their child having a “personal experience” that might lead to drug use or abortion.

The National Center of Education Statistics report found that, in general, parents are more likely to be asked to discuss their childs sex and/or drug use with their kids, and more likely than parents who are not involved in sex- or drug-based curricula.

The NCES surveyed 1,002 school districts and school staff across the US, and found that about 11 percent of parents were told about their childrens sex or drug use by their school’s sex education coordinator or counselor in 2017 and about 11.5 percent of districts said their sex education staff had told parents about their students’ sex or marijuana use. 

The NCERS report also found parents were less likely to want their children to discuss sex or sex-related topics with their school staff.

About 16 percent of respondents said they wanted to discuss a sex or cannabis-related topic with their sex and marijuana education staff, compared to about 22 percent of parent-reported parents who reported that their child discussed such topics. 

More: More parents are asking to discuss topics like sex and drugs in school, according to a new NCES report. 

Parents in the United States are also more likely now than ever before to have sex ed and other sex-based topics in school.

Parents in 2017 were asked about sex and sexual topics in a survey conducted by NCERS, which found that 71 percent of children aged 4 to 17 had discussed their sexual orientation, while 45 percent had discussed drug use.

More: Parents in the U.S. are more concerned than ever about the topic “sex” and “drugs,” according to an NCES survey conducted in 2017 that found that parents are concerned more than ever with the topic.

New findings from the NCERS survey also suggest that parents’ fear of discussing sex or other sexual topics may be holding back the advancement of sex-positive education.

About 6.4 percent of surveyed parents said that the curriculum’s emphasis on abstinence-only education did not make them more likely or more comfortable discussing sex, and 3.6 percent said that focusing on the importance of abstinence-focused education did make them less likely or less comfortable.