Background: Adolescence is a highly dynamic period characterized by rapid growth and development. Adolescents have limited knowledge about sexual and reproduction health, and know little about the natural processes of puberty, sexual health, pregnancy or reproduction. In India, due to varied cultural and religious beliefs, parents generally are not interested to talk about sex-education though they are the first socializing agent of the children. So it is pertinent to investigate the attitudes of parents towards sex education of their adolescent children.
Methodology: Descriptive comparative research design was adopted and 120 parents (60 from each area) were selected through purposive sampling technique to study the attitude of parents towards sex education of their adolescent children who fall in the age group of 10-19 years, from randomly selected urban and rural areas of Sikkim. Parents were interviewed using structured attitude scale for which validity and reliability was ensured initially.
Results: The findings revealed that in urban area, mothers (80%) and fathers(43%) seldom provided sex education, while the percentage of parents who provided sex education was even lower in rural area (mothers 82% and fathers 88%). The reason identified was hesitation and parent’s belief that child will learn by their own. Data also revealed that in urban area 87% of mother and 83% father are unaware of services provided to adolescent children for sexual health and similarly in rural area 87%of mothers and fathers are unaware of it. The attitude regarding sex education was found to be unfavorable with score of 81.70% in rural and 71.70% among parents in urban area (t=0.24, P>0.05). The results also revealed agender difference in parental attitude towards sex education, however residency was not a determinant of attitude towards sex education (t = 3.17, P<0.05) among parentsof urban and rural (t= 2.433,P<0.05) areas. However, there was a difference in parental attitude with regards to their age, marital status, occupation, history of receiving sex education, awareness of services provided to adolescent children for sexual and reproductive health, appropriate age to begin sexuality education for children from parents for rural parents(P<0.05).
Conclusion: The study has provided an empirical basis, and not societal opinion about the attitude of Sikkimese parents towards sex education. As in many areas of research, the area of sex education is particularly important to national progress. As an aspect of development, denying its relevance in society will be counterproductive. Education of all sorts should be beneficial to the individual who is being educated and should in many ways bring a positive impact to the community and the society at large.
Impact Factor
2022: 6.012
This work is licensed under a