How Much Do They Know?

"There's nothing they're not aware of but a lot they don't know," muses New York City Assistant Principal Herbert Silkowitz. What was true a generation ago is true today: children know both too much and not enough about sex. Now it's just more of the same, at a younger age, with misinformation running wild.

This is hardly a surprise, considering where children get their concepts about sex. Three-fifths of teenagers pick them up from friends or "on their own," according to a 1985 Planned Parenthood poll, while only a third get their information from parents or school. Pornography is part of the on-their- own category, with the soft-core pages of Penthouse sometimes supplemented by an X-rated videocassette Dad left lying around. The increasingly unfettered use of sex as a come-on in the mass media is a new and unsettling factor, overwhelming the young in stimulation -- soap operas, cable television, blatantly erotic ads for Obsession perfume. But apart from saying "watch" or "buy," these sensations offer no guiding context. Says Nancy Olin, teen- education coordinator for Boston Planned Parenthood: "The daytime soaps show constant and irresponsible sexual behavior: no waiting, very few morals."

Professional sex educators agree that when it comes to guidance, parents are the best source. "This is probably the first generation of parents that believes sex is normal and natural, and that leaves plenty of room for the moral questions -- when it is right and with whom. People are entitled to their own views and to pass them on to their children," says Ron Moglia, director of the human-sexuality research and teaching program at New York University. "Any parent who relinquishes the right to talk to his child about sex is giving up one of the most wonderful experiences he can have."

But it is not an easy one. What should children be told, and when? Clearly there are no absolute rules. Variations depend on how each child is maturing, even where a family lives. Children from rural backgrounds, particularly farms, are more in tune with sex and reproductive cycles than their supposedly sophisticated urban counterparts. The experts offer general guidelines based on experience. Leah Lefstein, acting director of the Center for Early Adolescence in Chapel Hill, N.C., notes, "Kids are aware of human sexuality at an earlier age than we give them credit for. They are three years old when they want to know where babies come from." And they can understand simple, descriptive answers. Says Sharon Shilling, a Denver sex-education expert: "When they come into kindergarten, they generally have a knowledge of body parts, and they know about basic bodily functions."

Olin stresses that it is appropriate to explain things differently at different ages. Until perhaps age eight, the questions are mainly biological and the answers should be too. But at ten, parents and educators need to explain masturbation, wet dreams and menstruation, for example. At that age, she says, children do not need to know about birth control. Sex educators agree that girls should understand in advance the most important and indeed shocking physical changes that will affect their bodies during their lifetimes. And boys, who mature more slowly and undergo less dramatic physical changes, should nonetheless be told what is about to happen to them. It may also be appropriate to describe the changes in the opposite sex.

By the early teenage years, the full range of sexuality can be discussed in concrete terms; explanations should not be overly complex but may require a little reading up and planning beforehand. Parents should not be put off by shrugs of "I know all that." Exposure to explicit pictures or peer-group whispers is no substitute, and ignorance can mean disaster. Says Olin: "We have pregnant teenagers now at age 13 or 14." Dr. Marion Howard, of Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital, lists some myths that are, appallingly, still prevalent at this age: "If you think the time of the month you can get pregnant is near the time of your menstrual cycle, or douching with Coke keeps you from getting pregnant, or using Saran Wrap as a condom is effective, or sexual intercourse standing up prevents pregnancy -- that's all harmful." Such misinformation flourishes best when parents shy away from the responsibility and reward of guiding their children.