Children do not need to know

about bestiality or any number of other things it now seems they are being confronted with in school.

Two things prompt me to write this, or perhaps three. The first is the report in this morning's paper of a "respectful relationships" session held at a state school in which bestiality was talked about along side with LGBTQIA+ relationships. Parents were not even informed the session was taking place - but students had to attend it. The second is a report I had from a child of my acquaintance that he was punished when he described a child he did not know to his teacher. "I said he had hair that was like the colour of a carrot and she told me I was very rude and we deserved it if he wasn't being nice but I didn't say it to him. I said it to her because I didn't know his name." 

Like being told the Easter Bunny does not exist it seems that there are issues of which I am not aware but that young people need to be taught.  Let it be said here that if I was the head of a school I would not be running any sort of "respectful relationships" sessions without the consent of the parents, indeed I would not be running any at all unless I was required to do just that. The reason for this would be that I would expect children to respect each other and the other people in their lives.  

If a child came to me and reported a serious incident involving another child and described the child as having carrot coloured hair I would say, "I can understand why you are describing him in that way but it isn't considered to be very polite. Let's find out what his name is before we talk to him." 

Am I wrong in suggesting that making an issue of these things is making matters worse?  We have a situation here where someone who is apparently the "e-safety Commissioner" is taking Elon Musk to court because his X or Twitter platform allowed someone in Canada to make a negative comment about someone here. The person here took exception to the comment and complained. X has blocked the comment here in compliance with the law but that apparently was not good enough. X is now challenging it and, while I think far more needs to be done about bullying and hate speech on social media, I hope X wins.  The comment in question is critical but it does not fit the definition of hate speech and the person who complained has caused far more harm than the person who made it (and who continues to advocate for the safety of children). Simply being a person with a particular characteristic does not give you the right to be offended by all statements about your status. It becomes an offense when it is done with malicious intent or an intention to do actual harm. It does not make you immune from criticism.  Children do not need to be taught that some groups with a particular status or characteristic are more deserving of respect than others. They simply need to be taught about respect.