Young FICCI Ladies Organization (YFLO), Hyderabad Chapter organised a session “Untaboo Your Parenting” for young parents who are their members with Anju Kish in Hyderabad at The Park, Somajiguda on Wednesday.
250 Members and invited guests attended the session. Besides their members, representatives of city’s few reputed schools such as HPS, Oakridge, Kangaroo Kids, New York Academy, Meridian School, The Premia Academy, Shri Ram Academy also attended the knowledge packed session that lasted little over two and half hours.
Anju Kish broke India's biggest wall, The Wall of Silence. She gave answers to many kids’ curious questions like How does a baby come into the tummy? What is Condom, Sanitary Pad, Gay, what is the meaning of showing middle finger, what is FUCK? etc.
"How does a baby come into the mummy?" A simple and age-appropriate explanation should work well. You can say something as simple as, there is a baby bag in the tummy in which there is a tiny seed, when the time is right, mother’s seed mixes with fathers through a scientific process and the seed grows into a baby just like a seed grows into a plant. Keep adding layers of age-appropriate information as they grow up, she informed.
Speaking about how to explain a sanitary pad to six/seven years old kids, as kids are sometimes curious to know, she said and added that the baby bag in the tummy needs to be cleaned every month. While cleaning, sometimes a few blood stains come out, which will spoil clothes. That is why it is used, she explained.
She shared a funny incident in this regard that happened to one of the participants of her workshop. A mother once placed an order for a Sanitary Pad online and an e-com portal door delivered it. The child who took delivery of the parcel opened out of curiosity and asked his mother what it was and why it was bought. She responded that they were the napkins for a special occasion and kept the pack in the bathroom. The other day when guests visited, mother was shocked to see the baby distributing them to the guests. The incident taught us that we must be careful in choosing words and explanations.
On showing middle finger and meaning it conveys, she told her participants to explain it to their kids in simple words that it is a slang, a bad word, a slang signage which means is to show your private parts to others which is bad
About FUCK, the word being used loosely and often and how to respond, she hinted to explain it as a slang, word of disrespect and an abuse. What it means is that you are asking other people to show their private parts to you.
Gay is another term kids are curious to know and keep asking about it. When you are confronted with the question by our kid simply explain, Men like blue, women pink colour. Men like cars, women like dolls. But what is wrong if a boy likes a pink color, nothing right? Boys love girls and girls love boys and it is natural. But there may be a girl loving girl and a boy loving boy. That doesn’t mean that it is bad. We can't label them. We must respect that she gave her explanation.
Anju herself faced a very tricky situation from her son who asked her what is the USA? And whether she visited it ever. She gave a normal explanation, “The United States of America”. And she confirmed that she visited it. But to her shock, the boy told her that what it meant was ‘Under the Skirt Area’. She was astonished.
Anju Kish is a Certified Sex Educator, double graduate, former journalist, an avid writer, passionate speaker and an out of the box thinker, Anju is a mother of 2 teenagers with a cauldron of ideas that made the session fun and educative. She is a Founder of UnTaboo, a company dedicated to Safety and Sex Education. It has been working to break the taboos around the subject to nurture a safer society.
Speaking further, Anju Kish said ‘we must decode the word sex education, and find another term. Though there are some words like ‘body literacy’, ‘Adolescent Education Program’ etc are used, we need better words so the people are not scared of it, she said. She told her participants to use conversation.
It is generally believed that people experiment in urban cities, but people in the rural areas are experimenting more than urban counterparts.
The session was aimed to educate and enlighten young and old moms, grandmas and everyone in the audience as to how to communicate with children of varied age groups when it comes to topics like sex, puberty, sexual identity and various questions that children ask. The session focused on breaking the taboo and giving the right answers to raise educated children with the right knowledge on these topics.
This generation needs answers ahead of their time. Covering topics and questions for children from 2 years to 15 years, the session brought a new perspective on parenting where social stigma is broken and open communication was encouraged. This was an attempt to build a better society where every child is well-informed and not mis-informed. Ultimately the session was helpful in building a responsible and empowered next generation that believes in open communication with their parents on every topic, shared Ms. Ms. Sonali Modi Saraf, Chairperson of YFLO.
Prior to the session speaking to the media Anju Kish said that she was working towards changing the mindsets and making people realize that Sex education is not about sex, but about helping children transition smoothly from childhood to adulthood with a very positive and responsible attitude.
India is said to have a high rate of teenage pregnancies. 53% of children in India between the ages of 5 to 12 are sexually abused. The average age at which a child in India watches porn is 11 and experiments with sex is 14 years.
Many believe that sex education corrupts children, but the statistics of our country where there is sex education proves that …. sex education is not the culprit, it is the solution to keep the child safe.