Sex Education: 101

Letters of birds and the bees

There’s been a flurry of controversy in print, radio and social media about the newly revised Ontario Sex Education Curriculum, due to start in Ontario’s elementary schools this fall.

It’s complicated. Talking about the birds and the bees is probably one of the toughest topics for parents to tackle with their children. When we were kids we didn’t have the World Wide Web, cell phones and Facebook. Sexting (sending explicit sexual images or messages electronically), date rape drugs, reality TV and online social networks were non-existent. There is no question that the primary ‘teacher’ of sexual and social values should be parents—but what is their level of competence and comfort?

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Three Faces of Widowhood – Part ll: Working Through

eye of grief

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss Psychiatrist identified in 1969, the five stages of Loss and Grief (similar to the 5 stages of dying): denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It describes the emotional stages that survivors experience after the death of a loved one (or the loss of a pet, friend, limb, breast etc.) Grief does not have a schedule—there are no deadlines for the resolution of grief. Of course these stages can occur in any order and can be re-visited over time as one moves to peaceful acceptance.

Another way of looking at the grieving process is through three broad and overlapping phases:

  1. Retreating – the experience of disbelief, shock, confusion and disorientation
  2. Working Through – the experience of feeling the full impact of the death – the expression of feelings and responses
  3. Resolving – the integration of the loss into one’s life

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