Basseterre, St. Kitts (SKNIS): “Responsibility in Sexuality: How to handle your sexual desires wisely” was the focus of the inaugural Parenting Training Workshop organized by the Saddlers Secondary School Guidance Counselling Department.
The one day workshop held on October 23 is just one of the many series of seminars to come for the parents.
“At the Saddlers secondary school we aim not only to impart academic knowledge to our students but we also aim to instil proper spiritual, ethical and moral values in our students,” said Adina Richards, Principal of the school. Ms. Richards added that at times there are a number of challenges faced to do so.
“We depend on you and you depend on us to help sum out these challenges as we realised none of us can do it alone,” she noted. “It is with this in mind that we embark on this parental seminar.”
She further notedthat the school wants to ensure that what is taught at Saddlers Secondary School is modelled and reinforced at home.
Clifford Pemberton, the school’s Guidance Counsellor, noted that one of the main goals of this and the other seminars to come is to build relationships.
“Home is a major contributor to the education of our children…when the parents meet, when the school does its work, when the community does its work then we will build strong relationships…and that’s the whole aim of these seminars. We want to build strong, vibrant, effective relationships,” said Mr. Pemberton.
Facilitator of the workshop Analdo Bailey encouraged the parents of the young people, especially parents who have young daughters, to speak to their children about sex.
“Many parents seem to have a mark reluctance to speak to their girls in a manner that helps to inform and to educate…that does not help. I am suggesting that once you are able to sit down with your teenager and explain the facts of life, because they have seen and they have heard but sometimes they are still uncertain and they need somebody to explain to them more fully to them some of the things that they are reading and seeing.”
Some of the trends revealed by Mr. Bailey at the workshop included persons that engage in sexual activity very early, has implications for the rest of their lives, there is a relationship between early sexuality and sexual involvement and economic circumstance, the younger a girl is when they have sex for the first time the greater the average age difference between her and her partner, the greater the age difference an adolescent girl and her first partner, the more partners she is likely to have in her teenage years.
Upcoming seminars include “Temperament” on October 29, “Money Matter” on October 31 and “Self-esteem: Building Self-Esteem of a Child” on November 6.