Are these gross aberrations? An example of what exceptionally undisciplined kids do when left to their own devices? A sign of the times? A trend?
I think it's hard to generalize from two incidents and say that they "mean" anything on a national scale. But, they should be a wake up call to parents on opposite ends of a spectrum: those who deny the consequences of sexualizing children and those who are naïve about preteens' interest in and knowledge about sex.
Most pre-teens are not unaware of sex. To be sure, it's a mystery, off-limits, and misconceptions abound. But as the age of the onset of puberty has dropped, exposure to sexually-themed TV shows, music, and movies has increased, and cultural taboos against pre-marital and extra-marital sex have eroded, the buffer between kids and sex has become very thin. There is a cost to unrelenting exposure to sex - it becomes normalized at younger and younger ages. At the same time, we are neglecting to teach values in any systematic way. As a result, we have extremely unsophisticated kids entering what used to be an adults-only world of sexual imagery and temptation. And, as Christians, we are expecting them to weather that storm for a decade or more until they are married.
How do we, as parents and Christian educators, respond to these new realities? First of all, our level of shock and alarm cannot be the engine that drives our reaction. Sex apart from a marriage commitment is sin, at whatever age. From a worldly perspective, we might be less moved if the students in question had been 17 and having sex at home, or 21 and hooking up at a college party. But from a Biblical perspective, that misses it: a Biblical view of sex and morality has nothing to do with age and everything to do with lifelong commitment (which, needless to say, no 11-year-old and few 17- or 21-year-olds can make).
What we need is a comprehensive body of knowledge and values dealing with love, sex, commitment, and purity that we pass on to kids as they mature. I can't tell you what the "right age" is talk with your kid about sex, except to say that it needs to be an ongoing dialogue, not one blast of information, and that school programs are generally years too late in what they present and awkward in their attempts to present it in a value-neutral way.
"But my kid isn't interested in girls (or boys) yet." That's a valid consideration. Too much information too soon can be overwhelming, creating a false sense of security in parents - "we've had that talk" - when in reality the message wasn't internalized because the kid couldn't relate. But the other consideration is that by the time a kid does become interested in the opposite sex, they have already formed a value about sex. If you wait until the wind starts to blow to protect your house from a hurricane, you still might survive, but wouldn't you feel better if all you had to do was execute the plan already made?
And that's what you're doing when you talk with your kids about sex before they become teenagers - you are constructing the plan and the defenses that will help guide them through adolescence. The trust and rapport you would hope to have with your future teenager is being built now.
Which leads me to the five things your preteen does know about sex:
1. They know whether their parents are able to talk openly to them about it
2. They know if their parents consider it dirty or shameful
3. They know what sort of moral standards they are held to on other issues ("My parents don't care what I do." or, at the other extreme, "I am expected to be perfect.")
4. They know whether mom and dad are easy to come to when they have a problem
5. They know whether mom and dad can talk about values with them without dictating or sermonizing
If you suspect the answers to numbers 4 and 5 above to be no, here are some things you can do right now:
+ Be the person who puts them to bed, every night
+ Have family dinners together without the television on
+ Ask them their opinions
+ Learn to listen non-judgmentally
+ And most importantly: clarify your own values when it comes to sex, so that when they do ask, you can give a clear message. Think about it: beyond, "Don't...yet", what is your message?
