Program shows students their options
I don’t mind admitting when something scares me, especially when it should scare everyone. Home invasions. Poisonous snakes. Tornadoes. The internet.
I am frightened of the things our children and grandchildren can stumble into online. It allows them to see and read about things that are much too mature for them, including sex.
Zoie Duncan is the local instructor for Decisions, Choices and Options (DCO), a program in Lawrence County’s public and private schools that presents age-appropriate lessons about relationships, boundaries, decision-making, and the risks of early sexual activity.
“Media is a huge part of their lives. Kids can spend 8-9 hours a day watching online media. They go to the internet rather than socializing, developing real relationships.
“Our families are in crisis. Marriage rates decline with each generation and we have 24 million children growing up without fathers. For boys, the result is behavior problems. Girls are more apt to become sexually active early,” she said. “Sexual freedom has enslaved us.”
DCO works to counteract the sexually-charged messages our children receive. Four programs in Lawrence County schools cover topics including:
-Puberty, human growth and development
-Healthy and unhealthy relationships
-Pregnancy, STDs, and emotional consequences
-Self-efficacy, boundaries, refusal skills, decision-making
-Benefits of marriage, poverty prevention
-Character education, Goal-setting, future focus
-Media influence and dangers
-Importance of accomplishing educational goals.
Healthy Boundaries is a two-day program for eighth graders that gives students the facts about abstinence and non-abstinence, and teaches them about self-worth and healthy relationships.
Middle school students are among the hardest hit by changes in our culture. Family no longer provides the identity and support it once did, and achievement is emphasized. In the fickle world of the internet, no one receives praise for long. Between 2007 and 2017, the rate of suicide among American middle school students doubled.
Life Choices is presented to ninth grade wellness classes one day a semester and offers medical facts about pregnancy and the choices it forces. Another topic is sexually transmitted diseases, which are on the rise among young people.
“We’re hearing about diseases that we thought were gone years ago,” Duncan said. STDs including syphilis and gonorrhea cost American taxpayers $15 billion a year.
Cost of Parenting is presented to seniors in required personal finance classes and covers the physical, emotional, financial and educational cost of an unplanned pregnancy.
“We reinforce abstinence by revealing the difficult options faced by a teen in an unplanned pregnancy.” A teen mom has to give up her personal goals and often faces a lifetime of poverty. Nationally, just two in ten teen dads marry the mother of their child, setting up the next generation for difficulties.
Students who follow the “Success Sequence Paradigm” have only a 2% chance of living in poverty as adults. It tells them to 1) Graduate; 2) Get a full-time job; and 3) Wait until they’re 21 and married before having children. I would urge them to wait longer than that.
Thrive is a DCO program presented one hour a week for nine weeks in our school system’s Achievement Academy. These students have been temporarily removed from the general student population because their behavior demonstrates they need extra help. Thrive puts an emphasis on worksheets and activities, Duncan said.
The good news is that nationally, the percentage of teens who have had sex has decreased, from 47.8% in 2007 to 39.5% in 2017. No one should assume that a teen will be sexually active. “Most teens have not had sex, and about half of those who have wish they had waited,” the DCO website states.
All teens should be told to practice abstinence by those who care about them. “Youth will rarely rise above the standards we set for them,” Duncan said. All parents know this is true. The organization’s website, DCOinc.org, offers a wealth of information for parents struggling to approach these tough subjects.
Duncan is available to speak to any group about the DCO programs and how you can support them. She can be reached at Zoie.DCOinc@gmail.com.