A couple of weeks ago I interviewed John Styn about his project Hug Nation.  One of  the points we talked about was how critical physical contact is to us humans – in particular how important hugging is. Then yesterday, the New York Times published an article on teenage hug culture: For Teenagers, Hello Means “How [...]

I have recently been drawn into a conversation about teenagers, sexuality, and online activities on a massive e-mail group.  The conversation was started by a father posting a link to this Daily Mail article about the excessive promiscuity and online sexual activity teenagers are regularly engaging in.  I was unimpressed by the article - and [...]

Oh my goodness, it has been far too long since I’ve written here.  But I had a really good reason, I promise!  On Saturday, I co-ran a huge holiday fair at my daughter’s school.  As some of you may remember but probably not all of you know, it’s a private school for grades K - [...]

[This post written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen]
We live in a world where more and more people are accepting of alternative lifestyles. Yet students who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender still report very similar amounts of harassment and negative effects in school as they did in 1999. Recently, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education [...]

One of the questions I asked my Human Sexuality students last week was whether any of them had ever stretched the truth - or perhaps even flat-out-lied - about their sexuality.  Everyone giggled nervously and looked shifty eyed.  One brave young soul rolled his eyes and raised his hand saying, “Yeh, hasn’t everyone?”  More nervous [...]

Okay, so to be more specific, there are two Austin teenagers who are my personal heroes. I don’t know their names, or the names of any of their 20-odd friends who
stood around and watched while they changed my tire in a parking lot at 2am late Sunday night. But I do know that [...]

I recently spoke with a group of parents of second graders. They asked me to come and talk about how/when to talk with their children about sex and the myriad issues associated with it. They also wanted some assistance to help them come together into a cohesive group for the many years of [...]

I am about to drive to the Houston airport.  I am going there for personal reasons, but will now make the drive thinking about one 14-year-old Houston girl who was at the airport yesterday.
The AP reports that this young teenager gave birth to a stillborn fetus in an airplane bathroom.  She put the fetus in [...]

(Written by guest blogger JustAnotherTeen.)
My guest blog for this month will be about 4parents.gov. I found this website through a commercial (they are all on their site) and I must say, it kind of disturbed me. On the about us page, they said this:
“4Parents.gov is part of a national public education campaign to provide parents [...]

I have been thinking a lot recently about teenage moms.
I wasn’t a teenage mom myself - I was 21 when I got pregnant - but I looked like a teenager, and was often treated like a teenage mom. In other words, strangers felt they could make derisive comments about (a) my assumed inability to [...]