Browsing by Author "Partanen, Verna"

Aims. The aim of sexual education among young children is to support and protect children’s sexual development (Ingman-Friberg & Cacciatore, 2016). Even though a young child is considered as a sexual being, studies show that sexual education does not appear as a planned activity in Finnish early childhood education yet. This study aims to analyse, which body parts do children, under the age of seven, view as their private body parts that are not allowed to be touched by others without their own permission. In other words, the intent of this study is to find out how children have understood the knowledge and own rights about appropriate touching, as known as safety skills. Furthermore, the aim is to analyse where have these private body parts been learned from. This study offers an opportunity to go deeper into the subject matter and to discover possible defects in the educational needs. Methods. This study was based on a phenomenological study, which aims to understand people’s experiences. This was conducted with the use of qualitative research methods, such as group interviews and colouring pictures, which worked as private documents. Research material was collected from six approximately five-year-old children from two different kindergartens. Materials were analysed with data based content analysis. Results and conclusions. According to the document material, children had different views on private body parts. However, all of the children viewed the areas around breasts, genitals and buttocks as private. This indicates that children have understood the privacy of the swimsuit rule. Furthermore, every child described some body parts as private, which means that none of the children viewed their bodies fully acceptable to touching. According to the interview material, there were different factors that represent where were the private body parts learnt. These factors were divided into children’s own viewpoints and environmental effects. The results of this study shows, that children had learned some safety skills, even though the answers did not connect early childhood education as the source of learning. It seems that sexual education has happened, but not in early childhood education.