Better Sexual Education Design for Children: Based on the Characteristics of Children’s Sexual Psychological Development
Abstract
To make children enter puberty with a healthy sexual mentality, it is very important to carry out pre-adolescent sex education that is corresponding to the characteristics of psychological development stages of children. However, there are no studies that specifically address the characteristics of children's psychosexual development, and few studies that explore how sex education can be targeted at each stage of a child's development. This paper intends to examine the traits of children's psychosexual development across various stages, utilizing Piaget’s and Erikson’s developmental theories, summarize the findings, and explore how sex education resources should align with the developmental characteristics of children at different ages to enhance contemporary childhood sexuality education. This study conducts an unbiased and methodical analysis of the global literature from 1970–2024. The gaps and comprehensiveness of earlier studies are also assessed, and possible strategies for further strengthening child sex education are proposed based on the theories and techniques they provide. The research shows that Piaget's theory has a profound significance for studying the characteristics of sexual psychological development of preoperational children, and can be used as a reference for the design of gender identity curriculum. Erikson's theory is expected to be applied to the study of the psychological characteristics of social sexual interaction and the teaching design of children from 6 years old to pre-adolescence.
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