PEDIATRICS Vol. 42 No. 3 September 1968, pp. 535-537
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wood, C. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Wood, C. L.

FAMILY LIFE AND SEX EDUCATION

COMMITTEE ON SCHOOL HEALTH COMMITTEE ON INFANT AND PRESCHOOL CHILD COMMITTEE ON YOUTH

Committee on School Health, M. Harry Jennison M.D., Thomas E. Cone Jr. M.D., Carl Castle Fischer M.D., Harold M. Hobart M.D., Arthur H. Hurd M.D., C. George Murdock M.D., Kenneth D. Rogers M.D., Carl S. Shultz M.D., Werner Bustamante M.D., Committee on Infant and Preschool Child, Edward T. Wakeman M.D., William Curtis Adams M.D., Talcott Bates M.D., Alice D. Chenoweth M.D., Raymond A. Christy M.D., William B. Forsyth M.D., Herman W. Lipow M.D., Roland E. Miller M.D., Committee on Youth, Robert W. Deisher M.D., V. Robert Allen M.D., Harry Bakwin M.D., S. L. Hammar M.D., Sprague W. Hazard M.D., Albert J. Schroeder M.D., Thomas E. Shaffer M.D., John Allen Welty M.D., and Charles Louis Wood M.D.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is deeply concerned with the increasing social health problems in today's society, particularly those that relate to the function of the family as a unit and to the behavior of its children and youth. Some of the signs of the serious social, moral, and ethical crisis facing us are: increasing illegitimacy, early marriage, dangerous drug use, rising incidence of venereal disease, family fragmentation manifested in divorce, and lack of restraint within the mass media in presenting sexually stimulating material to young and immature persons.

It is the Academy's conviction that all segments of the society of responsible adults, lay and professional, must mobilize now in support of personal and collective action to help children and adolescents grow to a healthy maturity as intellectually, socially, and sexually secure individuals. We join with other national organizations, such as the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, the American Medical Association, the National Education Association, and support the interfaith statement of the nation's major religions in officially supporting health education, including family life and sex education. We urge programs that will create a vigorous and healthy social climate in which family life can flourish and which foster mature sexual behavior in each individual. With this larger goal in mind, we propose and endorse the following general programs and actions.

1. Every concerned adult, lay or professional, must be encouraged to examine his own values and behaviors in order to develop an openness which permits a meaningful rapport with children and youth.