Talking.

It’s what parents – and non-parents alike – are doing throughout the
state since last week’s vote by the Portland School Committee to
support making contraception available at King Middle School. Not only
was the 7-2 vote a hot topic of conversation around local water
coolers, the decision went national as media outlets converged on the
Pine Tree State to pick apart the plan that offers birth control pills
and patches – without parental consent – at the school-based health
center.

Parents were given the option of signing their student up for services
at the clinic and therefore had the power to make sure they would not
be issued birth control – at the school health center, at least – if
they so choose.

Critics rallied against the program, many arguing the measure would
encourage children to have sex. The talked at the public hearings, on
the news and through various media blogging sites. They talked all
about their kids and what their kids were doing – but mentions of
talking to their children were rare.

But what they should have been doing is sitting at their kitchen tables
discussing their feelings and stance with their children. Because the
fact is that some children in our middle schools are having sex. While
those concerned parents may not have a child who is sexually active –
there is a classmate of theirs that is.

This marks a great opportunity for parents to discuss with their
children what they deem appropriate behavior. It also opens several
doors for discussion about birth control – why they support or don’t
support the proposal if the option was to be made locally – as well as
how to handle social pressures that children are faced with every day.
It is a chance to discuss why kids who have just entered puberty are
choosing to make adult decisions, and what the consequences may be.

While some parents are uncomfortable with the thought of birth control
being prescribed to 11-year-olds – they should be more uncomfortable
with what education, and misinformation, their children are getting
from their peers.

Sit down. And talk to your kids, not about them.