Meg Hickling often talks about sex, especially with children aged three to 13 and their parents or caregivers. And she's quite good at it. The feedback she gets regularly from grownups is: "I wish I had someone like you around when I was a kid." Hickling, a registered nurse and award winning sexual health educator, has written two books on the subject. One is for the parents and it's titled Speaking of Sex: What Your Children Need to Know and When They Need to Know It. The other one, Boys, Girls & Body Science: A first book about the facts of life, is for a younger audience. On Tuesday, May 22, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., Hickling will share her knowledge with Bowen Island parents and anyone interested in the subject at Cates Hill Chapel.
Hickling is of the opinion that the best time to speak to children about sex is from the day they are born. "The problem is we don't start soon enough," she says. "The day a child is born, we give them all kinds of non-verbal messages, from the way we handle them, we interact with them. If we started when they begin to talk and named the [body] parts with the right scientific expression, they wouldn't get to that embarrassment stage."
"Parents make the mistake thinking that because the children don't ask them about it, they don't have to talk to them yet," she said. "And the children think that because the parents never talk about it, they can't ask. When I ask children who they would prefer to talk to about sex, they say they wish they could talk to their parents but they end up talking to their friends." Hickling believes that it is hard for parents to broach the subject because it is likely that their parents weren't good role models. "I hope to inspire them all to start the conversation," she laughs.
Hickling sees a direct correlation between an effective sexual education and good sexual health. "It's important to teach the scientific vocabulary," Hickling suggests. "A lot of the baby talk and the rude names create discomfort. The scientific words keep everyone calm and you can build on that for the next 35 years." Her desire to improve sexual education stems from a time when she worked as a nurse. "I came across people who had serious problems because they had been too embarrassed to come to doctor or didn't recognize the problem," she said. "There are still people who are ill or dying due to the lack of [sexual] education."
Hickling mentions AIDS and other sexual transmitted diseases (STD) and elaborates, "What people don't realize is that some cancers are caused by STD. And that Chlamydia and Gonorrhea are causing infertility. It is really heartbreaking. If these people are open about it and get help, this is preventable." She adds that many physicians are just as uncomfortable as their patients to discuss sexual health. "Doctors need to be educated as well," she says.
Hickling does a lot of professional training for doctors, nurses, social workers, teacher, lawyers and members of the clergy. "Many people don't get the information when they get their training," she says.
In short, Hickling is looking for societal change. And she feels it is of vital importance because it has two impacts. One, it creates a stronger families if the children feel that they can talk openly about sexuality. And secondly, [sexual] education makes children abuse-resistant. "For a few years, I've worked in prisons with sexual offenders. I was hired to teach them about healthy sexuality but I also learned that they look for a child that has no vocabulary and has no defense mechanism," Hickling says. "I often hear the argument from parents that they don't want to talk to their children about sex to preserve their innocence but nothing destroys innocence faster than being sexually abused."
Hickling also advocates against programs that stress the negative about sexuality. "We have to lay the ground for a healthy sexuality first before we talk about bad touching," she says. "It always amazes me when people accept an anti-abuse program but not a healthy sexuality program."
Hickling is semi-retired but she still presents at conferences and regularly travels to Japan to speak. For her talk on Bowen Island, Hickling stresses that everyone is welcome to attend whether they are parents, grandparents, caretakers or simply curious. She looks forward to coming to the island, especially since she now has two grandsons living here. "When the [Island Discovery Learning Community] invited me to speak, I was happy to do it," she says.
Tickets are $10 and are available at the door.
