Silence Breeds Babies

Introduction

Teen pregnancy and sexual responsibility are issues concerning educators, parents, teens and teen couples. In each case, silence or miscommunication could result in individuals making unhealthy decisions not right for them.

Communication is very important between educators and students, parents and children, and two individuals involved in a relationship. Clear and open communication is needed in a relationship to avoid any unwanted situations.

A very dangerous silence can lie between a boy and girl in a romantic relationship. Couples need to discuss their expectations, boundaries, feelings, emotions and histories with each other before they have sexual intercourse. It is also important for the couple to develop respect for each other’s feelings towards the relationship and about themselves as individuals.

This lesson will show students the importance of having open communication about sexuality with their parents/guardians and with their partners.

Activity One: Charades - 15 minutes

Use the game Charades as a way to educate students about the importance of clear communication.

Teacher Instructions:

  1. Before class, make up some topics for the game and write them on small slips of paper (about 2-4 for each team). The topics can be names of things students know about—such as popular sports, famous people, recent movies or TV shows, or famous places.
  2. Fold each slip of paper in half and place them in a hat or small bag.
  3. At the beginning of class, break the students into 2-3 equal teams.
  4. Review the rules of the game with the students and monitor the teams to make sure the actors do not talk during the game.
  5. Use the chalkboard to keep score for each team. Decide beforehand how many points the group should play to (maybe 5-7 points).

Basic Rules of Charades

  • The game is played in teams of 2 or 3 equal groups of students depending on the group size.
  • Team members take turns being the actor. The actor chooses a piece of paper from hat or bag that tells him/her what to act out. The actor cannot show the piece of paper to any members of his/her team.
  • The actor can only use gestures and facial expressions to get the other team members to guess the topic or phrase.
  • The actor has a certain amount of time (three minutes) to give his/her teammates enough clues to guess the topic or phrase.
  • A team gets one point if they guess the correct topic the actor is acting out in the given amount of time. If the team does not guess the answer, another team can steal the point by guessing the correct answer.
  • At the end of each round, the teams pick a different actor to choose a new topic.

After the game, have students share their opinions about how difficult it was to communicate without using words and how difficult it was to understand the actor who could not talk. Other questions to include:

  • How is charades similar to a relationship between two people who do not communicate well with one another?
  • What are the consequences of not communicating well? What can happen between two people who do not share their thoughts and feelings?
  • What might happen between two people in a relationship who did not discuss their sexual expectations and boundaries with each other?

Communication has two parts—verbal and non-verbal—actions and words. It is hard to communicate without using both together.

Make sure students understand that many teen pregnancies occur due to the lack of communication between partners. A lack of communication occurs when a person’s verbal words and non-verbal actions do not match. For example, when a person says they are OK but have tears in their eyes.