Prioritize age-appropriate, ongoing conversations

Lise pointed to a highlighted section. "We talked about boundaries. Not just physical ones, but emotional ones. We did this exercise where we practiced saying, 'I’m not comfortable with that,' without feeling like we had to apologize."

Use a physical or digital "question box" in classrooms. Adolescents are much more likely to ask sensitive questions about attraction, heartbreak, and intimacy if they can remain anonymous.

A sudden, strong attraction to someone. It can feel like "butterflies" in your stomach or being extra nervous around them.

Romantic storylines allow adolescents to test different versions of themselves and figure out what they value in others.

These narrative approaches allow students to analyze relationship dynamics objectively, without the embarrassment of sharing their personal lives. It builds critical thinking skills that they can recall when facing similar situations in their own lives. The Role of Parents and Caregivers

Perhaps the starkest difference is the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ topics. While the 1991 film recognized that attraction occurs, it did so in a binary context. By 2021, the curriculum explicitly teaches about gender identity, sexual orientation, and the fight against homophobia and transphobia. This inclusivity, however, became the central battlefield of the 2021 culture wars, most notably seen in the controversy over the an educational tool used to explain the difference between biological sex, gender identity, expression, and attraction. In June 2021, a member of the conservative N-VA party sparked a furious online debate by criticizing this tool, accusing it of indoctrinating children with "gender ideology".