Powerful Choices : Series Three : Choose Knowledge

Abstinence from sexual activity until marriage is the only sure way to prevent STDs and pregnancy.

Character Trait:

Compassion and Confidentiality are important when dealing with peers and family members who are suffering negative consequences from sexual activity. A compassionate and confidential friend will listen to another’s heartache, not pass judgment, and not tell others about it. For many people, emotional and physical pain may result from acquiring a sexually transmitted disease before or after marriage from their infected partner. It’s important to have compassion for others while understanding how to avoid the same pain by abstaining from sex before marriage. By practicing compassion and confidentiality, the importance of making and keeping boundaries can be shared.

Lesson:

By discussing the most recent medically accurate information concerning common STDs, youth will gain an understanding of the possible emotional, psychological, and health risks of being sexually active. The students will be given an opportunity to discuss their concerns and questions with a medical professional that is invited as a guest to teach this class. Students will understand the importance of maintaining personal sexual activity boundaries.

Students will:

• Identify the most common STDs and gain an understanding of their potential of infection even when protection is used.
• Understand that teens increase their potential of infection by an STD with each additional sexual partner
• Understand the methods of contracting and the reasons for the epidemic of STDs among teens
• Consider the research showing the failure rates of the most commonly used birth control methods among teens
• Define “compassion” and “confidential” and how to develop these character traits

Activities: (these include review of the previous lesson and this lesson’s poster)

• PowerPoint: Teens and the STD Epidemic followed by group discussion
• Activity Changing Partners Game simulating exposure to disease through sexual contact with multiple partners
• PowerPoint: Common Contraceptive Methods: their Failure Rates among Teens
• Question and answer session with the medical expert
• Discuss how to use the Sexual Exposure Chart brochure for showing the rate of STD exposure with multiple partners to their family and peers
• Assignments