Sex education should be introduced earlier and more extensively in elementary school since more and more children are reaching puberty early, experts have told Tuoi Tre.

Female fifth-graders attend an extra-curricular sex education session at Vo Truong Toan Elementary School, District 10, HCM City.

Basic gender issues are only found in fourth- and fifth-grade textbooks while elementary schools just have a few extra-curricular sex education sessions in a year, they said.

But children are growing up faster, with some even reaching menarche in third grade, they pointed out.

Teachers at Doan Thi Diem Elementary School in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 4 said many of the boys already showed signs of puberty such as mustaches and cracking voices.

Some tried to physically touch girls, they said, adding others were lovelorn and jealous, developed crushes, and wrote love letters.

The experts said these students were in the dark about the changes they were undergoing.

The teachers said they had recently found girls sobbing and hiding from friends because they had their period.

One teacher said about a fourth-grader: “She sat quietly on the staircase instead of running around as usual.”

Le Thi Minh Hoa, a city-based consultant in psychotherapy and school affairs, said: “Elementary school students want to ask many questions about gender while teachers and textbooks fail to inform them about pubertal changes – things they now wrestle alone with.”

Tran Dinh Dung, a sociologist, said people were afraid to talk about sex to children while kids scratched their heads about the issue.

Elementary schools should regularly organize classes on sex education and take students to obstetric hospitals to educate them, he said.