In essence, our primary goal in education is to give children the knowledge and skills to help them lead a happy and healthy life. This curriculum offers teachers an opportunity to make this time of change, called puberty, into an exciting time of personal growth. The goal of this curriculum is to give students straightforward information regarding the physical, social, and emotional changes of puberty. Unlike other programs that use a "medical" approach, this program incorporates factual information with learning about feelings, appropriate social behavior, hygiene, decision-making, and sexual abuse prevention.
The Changes in You Curriculum uses a consistently positive tone for this introduction to sexuality education. This approach emphasizes that:
- the emotional, social, and physical changes of puberty are normal, healthy, and good;
- variations in growth and development are normal;
- sexuality is private because it is special;
- each person's body is beautiful and special; each person's body is of value and it belongs to him or her; and
- each person's body is worth taking care of and protecting.
These positive messages can serve as a strong foundation for further programming in developing responsible sexual behavior, sexual abuse prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, and AIDS prevention education.