Puberty is a time where you can be full of doubt and anxiety. I like to give classes different types of age appropriate (or rather, timely) scenarios so that they can practice thinking about and giving advice to others. Hopefully, this will embed some tools and strategies so that they have them handy if they or a friend are ever in a similar situation.
This was a scenario I gave to a Year 7 class and here is the advice they gave this person who is worried that they like boys when all their friends like girls:
💬find someone you can trust to talk to…you always feel better once you’ve shared a problem
💕it’s totally normal during puberty for sexual feelings to develop
🌈 sexuality can be a fluid thing so it’s normal to have feelings for people -it doesn’t matter what gender they are
💻there are lots of online resources from websites that you can trust if you don’t want to talk to someone
🧍🧍♂️if your friends are true friends they will accept you as you are and won’t care who you like 😊
I have to say that when I hear children answer these scenarios in these ways I hold a lot of hope for the future 💜