Sex program aims to help teens

By Judy Gibbs Robinson

Published: July 30, 2006

Kathy Harms wants Oklahoma children to hear two words this newspaper typically does not print.

She said young boys should grow up knowing they have a nose, two elbows and - insert the proper name for the male organ here.

And young girls should grow up knowing they have two ears, 10 fingers and - well, you get the idea.

“It’s really difficult for us to use this language because we were always told you don’t say those words. But we need to teach them what they have so they know how to protect it and be healthy,” Harms told a group of Oklahoma City grandparents recently.

Such frank talk has been Harms’ job since she started a nonprofit organization called Teen emPower two years ago to provide the sex education she believes Oklahoma children are lacking.

Oklahoma schools are required to address HIV-AIDS prevention at least three times - nothing more.

“We do a great job of preparing our children to swim. Same thing with driving a car. But we won’t teach them to be safe when they have sex,” Harms said, ticking off statistics on teen-age sexuality:

51 percent of male high school students and 49 percent of females have had sex, according to the Oklahoma Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered in 2003.

Oklahoma ranked eighth in the nation in teen births per capita in 2002.

More than 7,000 babies were born to Oklahoma teens in 2002.

1 in 4 teens nationally has a sexually transmitted disease.

Harms’ passion for taming teenage passion comes from experience. She was 16 when she had her first child. Motherhood delayed her education, but Harms said when she finally reached college in her mid-20s, she found her calling.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘Why didn’t I have this before?’ Lights started coming on at 25 that I realized should have come on at 12,” she said.

The birth of her third child five years ago - when she was mature, educated and married - provided the catalyst to do something.

“That’s when I got it. That’s when I said, ‘This is how you’re supposed to raise a child,’” Harms said.

Keeping children healthy
So two years ago, she quit her job as events coordinator for a state agency and started Teen emPower, using a sex education curriculum the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center developed.

This summer, she led a teen group at Crooked Oak High School through a five-week course emphasizing abstinence and self-esteem, but also telling them how to have safe sex.

During one session last week, a dozen teen-agers danced and laughed until Harms shooed them into an adjacent room for a presentation on self-esteem by Cheryl Aspy, a medical doctor who researches youth risk behavior.

“If you have low self-esteem, you are more likely than others to engage in all kinds of risky behavior,” Aspy said.

Her lesson was followed by a game in which the group sat in a circle and took turns giving and receiving compliments. Other sessions focus on decision-making, refusal skills and how to set limits in relationships.

“I emphasize abstinence in my program because I know that’s what’s best for them,” Harms said.

That message got through to Tiffany Page, 14, who was impressed by photographs of diseased body parts shown in one session.

“It looked so nasty it made me not want to have sex,” Page said.

But abstinence-only courses do not address the reality that many teens are sexually active, said Hiawatha Boaldin, a preventionist with the Eagle Ridge Institute, which co-sponsored the Crooked Oak program.

“We can jump on it and say, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do this.’ But we still have to tell them if something happens, you need to try this also because if you don’t, it’s your life. It’s your future,” Boaldin said.

Jacob Spencer, 16, thought he knew all about sex before coming to Teen emPower, where he discovered holes in his education.

“There were a lot of surprises,” he said. “My mom and them didn’t teach me about STDs. They just taught me about sex and babies.”

Harms said parents should not be expected to know all the latest research about sexually transmitted diseases, which is why schools need to provide comprehensive sex education, with the curriculum open to parental review.

So far, Crooked Oak is the only school district to put Teen emPower in the classroom for students whose parents sign permission slips.

“I’ve never gotten any flak. In fact, parents are very high on it. They want it,” Harms said.

In between classes for teens, Harms speaks to adult groups across the state.

“These issues are not about shame, blame and guilt. They’re about keeping our children healthy.”