Communication About Puberty Among Middle-School-Aged Children

Abstract

Puberty is an important element of sex education in the European and global context. Puberty is a normal feature of human development and encompasses a number of changes that affect children and their environment. Children need to be prepared for puberty, relevant changes and other aspects associated with this stage of life in a timely and appropriate manner. Children should acquire the necessary knowledge about puberty and should communicate about puberty before its onset. The prepubescent period is identified as the middle school age and relates to children in lower elementary school. Communication about puberty should be based around the family, but there is no guarantee that the child will acquire subjectively and socially desirable knowledge, adequate attitudes and behaviour. The role of the school is to provide information about puberty, basic attitudes and ways of decision-making. Parents and teachers often have barriers to communication about puberty, which result from their unpreparedness due to life experience. The present paper focuses on whether there is any communication about puberty among middle-school-aged children, on ways that they perceive puberty, what they think about it, and whether friends are a source of information about puberty. The paper is a description of a research questionnaire applied in the Czech Republic and China. It describes whether and how middle-school-aged children communicate about puberty. The present research study was carried out at the Faculty of Education, Palacký University in Olomouc (Czech Republic) and was a basis for a follow-up research project (IGA_PdF_2017_006), in which communication about puberty in Sweden is currently investigated.