Our Whole Lives

Parents as Educators

The developers of Our Whole Lives believe that parents* can be effective sexuality educators. A parent is a child's most important sexuality educator, and sexuality education begins at home. Schools, community organizations and religious congregations can help face this challenging yet rewarding task by offering support.

The Our Whole Lives curricula have responded to parents' need for support by developing parent orientation programs for each of the children's and youth curricula, and by developing The Parent Guide to Our Whole Lives: Grades K-1 and 4-6. The Parent Guide helps parents develop the comfort and communication skills to proactively communicate with their children about sexuality. It reminds parents that it's up to them to communicate their feelings, important information, and family values. The goals of the parent guide are four-fold:

• To address the concerns that parents have about talking with their children about sexuality.
• To offer tools for effective communication so parents can respond to their children's questions with age-appropriate answers.
• To strengthen the partnership in sexuality education between church, school, and home.
• To provide resources for sexuality education in the home.

Our Whole Lives for Grades K-1 is designed for both classroom and home settings.  The Parent Guide to Our Whole Lives: Grades K-1 and 4-6 equips parents to teach the K-1 curriculum to their child.  Both The Parent Guide and Our Whole Lives for Grades K-1 must be purchased together for such use.

The Our Whole Lives Parents' Webpage shares those goals, and in that spirit, guides you to currently-available, web-based sexuality education resources for parents.

Resources for Parents:

For parents of children of all ages:

• Mothers' Voices: United to End AIDS
• Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US: Parents' Area
• Talking About Sex: A Guide for Families
• How to Be a Good Parent
• Communication Tips for Parents
• Books for you and your children to read: Sexuality Education in the Home: A Guide
• Read the Latest Facts on Sexuality Issues: Fact Sheets
• National Parent Information Network

For parents of pre-schoolers:

• Teaching Your Preschooler: Oh No! What do I do Now?
  Also available in Spanish

For parents of elementary school students:

• Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace
• How to Talk to Your Children about AIDS
  Also available in Spanish

• Talking with your 8-12 year old: Now What Do I Do?

For parents of adolescents:

• Adolescence Directory OnLine (a collection of resources for parents, educators, researchers, health practitioners and teens on adolescent issues.)
• Talking About Birth Control: What do My Kids Need to Know?
• First Trip to the Gynecologist
• AMA's Adolescent Health Online
• Campaign For Our Children

* Throughout this page, parent refers to any loving care-giver, married or single, related or not. Back to top.

Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon St. | Boston, MA 02108 | 617-742-2100