Sex education has become a great need for the young people of America because of the increasing rate of unplanned pregnancy. Most teens are just not able to handle the responsibility of having kids. This is the reason why the infant simulator-based programs are being promoted to educate teens about being a young parent.
The makers of the robo-baby aimed to teach teens about the hardship of having a baby at the early stage of life. It is programmed to cry, laugh, get hungry, and so forth just like any baby would, so as the teen being educated will somehow experience how it would be to have a baby. The goal is to make the young people discouraged to start a family or have a kid at their young age. Nonetheless, to the dismay of sex educators, the effect of the robo-baby is said to be the opposite, as a study says.
In Australia, researchers studied 57 schools in Perth by dividing them into two categories. Total of 28 schools were given robot babies and 29 schools were given normal health programs. These girls were carefully tracked and studied. From the records in 2003 up to 2006, it turned out that 8 percent of the girls with robot babies had at least one birth compared to the other group that had 6 percent. Much worse is that, 9 percent of the robot group had at least one abortion while the other group had 6 percent. It seemed that the kids who had robo-babies were amused and got encouraged to have babies.
There should be better sex education programs that can help the young people. The robo-baby program was a wise try but there should be another way or perhaps, it can still be used but with a different approach.
Around 250,000 babies were born to women between 15 and 19 in 2014 and the rate seem not decreasing significantly. There is a great and immediate need for a more effective sex education in all schools. Moreover, sex education should also start well in every home. Parents should start getting serious about this topic at home.
