A parent of a newly minted high school student recounted a story to me today where his daughter cussed at him for the first time. It was a relatively mild cussing event, but it upset him. He pulled her aside, talked about the issues he has with cussing, and encouraged her not to do it [...]
Archives for relationships
Negotiating the road to adulthood
I have a friend with a teenage son. Actually, I have quite a few friends with teenage sons, but I’m thinking of one in particular this morning. She called me the other day because her 15 year old, after a day with a particularly high number of pestering questions and little annoyances, had [...]
The virignity issue
I’ve been pondering virginity again recently. A couple of things have come up, directing my attention there.
First, I was contacted not once, but twice within the same week by authors of new books on virginity, asking me to review their books (reviews are in coming posts - this is a multi-post issue if I ever [...]
Video advice from a cartoon princess
I was going to write a post today about how I am starting a middle school sex ed class up this year and see if anyone was interested in joining us (Why do a big comprehensive sex ed unit in middle school? See yesterday’s post for answers!) … but then I found the following. And [...]
It is not your fault
One of my best friends is named Alice. She is an amazingly strong, beautiful woman. Years ago - just out of college - she was in an abusive relationship. Part of Alice’s healing process has included ongoing writing about her experience. The following is something she wrote recently, and gave me permission to post here.
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I [...]
Ignoring what’s in front of you
When parents ignore what’s in front of them, they lose the chance to have meaningful conversations about choice with their teenagers. Here’s an example (if you’re receiving this via e-mail or RSS, you’ll need to come back to my site to watch the video):
What could the mom or the dad have said here - how [...]
How the law impacts our sexuality
I talk with my college students about the law interacts with individual sexuality at some length every semester. It’s always a fun, interesting class with some great activities. But I’ve struggled in the past with how to introduce the class. I begin every class with a song that pertains to the day’s topic in some [...]
Sexual bullying is not okay, even when it’s your sister
Welcome back from the holidays! But more on that later, because I’m too worked up on this topic to be able to concentrate on returning-from-holidays-niceties.
There is a recent meme floating around in the flotsam of the great wide Internet that seems to be causing much inappropriate hilarity. Here’s the basic gist: A teenage girl (her [...]
Sexting, oh sexting.
I’ve been asked a number of times in recent months what I think about sexting. So finally: my long-awaited response!
There’s two different kinds of “sexting” that need to be addressed, and the issues are so substantially different that they need two separate conversations. So today I’m going to address text-only texts, e-mails, and [...]
How to talk about awkward sex things…
Last week’s Zits columns were fantastic. I have always liked Zits, and this is just one more example of how fabulous this column is. On Monday, we saw Jeremy and his girlfriend kissing. Jeremy is a bit…over-enthusiastic:
On Tuesday, Jeremy’s girlfriend comes to talk with him about the quality of their kissing relationship. She manages this [...]
