“Every choice is painful…”
Ajarn Sujitra Prongsang, a government official (educational supervisor) who turned into an independent academic
I’ve encountered children in the program who called for advice, wanting to choose this option. At first, I was stunned. It was like a test to see if adults truly believe that children can make decisions that are appropriate for themselves. It was a real test for us at that time. After getting over the initial shock, we started using the academic knowledge we had learned, setting a good foundation, and checking a bit more to see if they really wanted that. Did they know about other options? Once we confirmed that they knew everything, we chose to direct them to sources of information that could safely terminate a pregnancy.
Because ultimately, we believe that if they don’t have this information, it is pushing them into risk.
Because when they make a firm decision, as we rechecked, we believe that they will definitely choose that path.
If we don’t provide them with safe options, we are pushing them into risk…
A teenager, we don’t know how much they will contribute to the country when they grow up.
But if their life ends because of something like this… it’s a sad thing. If they can have a safe choice, the chance to stand up, move forward, and pursue their dreams, which might be beneficial to the country, is possible.
Preventing such situations is teaching comprehensive sex education, not just sexual health. It means teaching and training about knowing oneself, understanding one’s desires, analyzing the consequences of one’s actions in the future, and seeing if we can choose to handle those situations. If not, are there other options to avoid reaching that point?
But of course, life conditions cannot be predicted. Even if we prevent as best as we can, we cannot say that our life will not reach that point. Even with the best prevention, life accidents can happen at any time, similar to road accidents. We are careful, but others can cause us to have accidents as well.
When life accidents occur, teachers should prepare them to handle it, not just prepare for prevention. They should be encouraged to see where they can find information if an accident happens in life, what options are available. Ultimately, the choice they make should be the one they can handle best. Every choice is painful…