Students at the Hepingli No. 1 Primary School in Dongcheng pretend to be "sperm" during a sex education game. From Chinasmack
Tune into the beijingkids blog each Thursday as we take you on a quick tour of interesting and relevant items from around the web, all relating (however tangentially) to parenthood and family life in Beijing.
1. Sex education in the classroom is a topic every parent eventually needs to think about … in this photo essay, Chinasmack takes a look at how it’s taught in one Beijing elementary school classroom.
2. And speaking of sex ed, it looks like most kids ain’t learning about it at home. According to this post by youth marketing firm Enovate, 74 percent of parents avoid discussing sex with their children. Meanwhile, the post cites another survey that indicates that 3 out of 4 of teenagers say the internet is their prime source for information about sex.
3. While on the topic of reproduction, American media mogul Ted Turner says we should all take a chapter from China and do a lot less of it. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says Turner advocates that the rest of the world should adopt China’s one-child policy.
4. Meanwhile, back in the Middle Kingdom, the necessity of such a policy is perhaps becoming questionable in today’s economic climate, as according to this report on Shanghaiist , 70% of couples polled don’t want a second child anyhow due to the cost of child-rearing.
5. So are your kids addicted to an iPhone, iPad or iTouch yet? If not, my guess it’s because you don’t have one. I’m sure more than a few of you can relate to this story on Boston.com in which a mom laments the fact that her 4-year-old has learned to buy apps on her iPad, racking up more than $70 in purchases.
A housewife caught with 65 cellphones around her waist, from micgadget.com
6. Speaking of wonderful Apple products, some housewives are obviously being forced into a life of crime in a vain attempt to fund their children’s insatiable Apple store purchases. According to this post from China gadget-spotting blog micgadget.com, border patrol down south are finding that housewives galore are smuggling millions of dollars worth of iPhones and iPads from Hong Kong into China to capitalize on the large price differential and high demand.
7. But in all seriousness, it’s easy to forget while living in high-flying Beijing that the majority of families in China are not exactly in a spot to afford iPhones and the like, let alone the games that you can download onto them. According to this post from Danwei.tv, 85% of all families in China cannot afford to buy a home, and that a normal family earning an average wage would have to save for almost 9 years — without eating or drinking — to be able to afford a property in today’s China.
8. Bad news for those of making our home in an apartment in smoke-happy Beijing: ABC News reports on more evidence that second-hand smoke takes a heavy toll on children, even if no one in the immediate family actually smokes indoors. Let’s not even get into the issues of bad air from other sources in Beijing …
9. More bad news, and we can only hope this is an isolated incident: The Global Times reports that a Beijing parent is suing the Beijing Aerospace General Hospital after the tragic death of their 2-year-old child — and accusing a nurse at the hospital of brazenly tearing up the child’s medical records in an attempt to cover up the incident.
10. Finally, the New York Times’ ‘Motherlode’ columnist Lisa Belkin brings to our attention the issue of what to do when you’re faced with a discipline issue not with your own child, but with one of your child’s playmates.