"Fathers and mothers have a fundamental role in the affective-sexual Education of their children, because they are the ones who know them best and because from love, closeness and daily attention can best help a young person to educate their character and prepare them for love". So says Jokin de Irala, Full Professor of Preventive Medicine and researcher of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra, on the occasion of the book he co-edited with Carlos Beltramo, Nuestros hijos quieren saber.... 60 questions on sexuality (EUNSA).

De Irala affirms that this task is complex nowadays: "The environment is making too many young people affective illiterates who only live responding to their desires". That is why she recommends that parents "update our training to be better prepared to respond to the current educational challenges and educate their children's affectivity continuously from a very young age and adapting to their ages and circumstances.

"The main vehicle of this Education are continuous and long conversations about friendship, love, desires, sexuality, etc.," he says. In this sense, he points out that summer vacations are an ideal time to hold these talks, since there is more time to spend with the children.

"If they don't ask questions," he adds, "it's a good idea to provoke conversations to explain things that have to do with what we're watching on TV, reading in the newspapers, seeing on the street or in our environment.

Sexed people capable of loving

According to Full Professor of the University of Navarra, there is the paradox that, although young people are very well informed with data about sexuality, "it coexists with great disappointment, pain and affective illiteracy, a feeling of unhappiness and failure in matters related to love". And he points out that it is the result of "having insisted too much on the biological aspects of information on sexuality without helping them to develop as sexual persons capable of serving others, of loving, of sacrificing themselves for others". "If sexuality is presented simply as a vehicle for pleasure staff instead of as a vehicle for meeting and love, this inevitably leads them to feel unhappy," he says. "It is not enough to have information about the how of things, but also to know the why, the meaning they have," he stresses. "With a lot of information without serious ethical reflection and the meaning of things, it is easy to make mistakes. A sexual Education without values is a call to sexual experimentation".

Finally, he emphasizes that the Education of character "is the foundation for young people to be able to make truly free decisions, so that they can, from their assertiveness, choose that it is worth reserve the gift of their sexuality for whoever can assume with them the commitment of a unique, permanent family project , which is a community of love and an optimal environment for the Education of their children".