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For Parents of Teens and Preteens

Which Parent Should Teach the Birds & the Bees?

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Teaching kids about sex is uncomfortable for most parents. If you’re a single parent, the task pretty much falls to you, comfortable or not. But if there are two parents in the picture, who should cover it? Can you let your spouse handle the job? Well, maybe…but not really. It’s best for kids if both […]

TalkStarter: What Does “Sexually Empowered” Mean?

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A lot of female celebrities lead with their sexuality. Think performers with low-cut tops, skirts that barely cover butts, and dance moves that you’d associate with strip clubs. Think starlets who “accidentally” release nude photos, or celebrities who’ve built or boosted mainstream careers using video of themselves having sex. Many of these women claim that […]

What Guys Mean by “Hilarious”–and Why Parents Should Care

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How do young men feel about date rape and consent? While young women have become increasingly vocal about the need for clear consent to sex, guys may have mixed feelings. Some are fully on board with wanting to treat women with respect and making sure a potential partner is ready for sexual activity. Yet guys […]

Protecting Your Kid from Porn

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The amount and variety of pornography available on the internet is truly amazing. And if you’re a parent, it’s truly terrifying. How can you keep your children from seeing sexual material—-especially anything-but-mainstream behavior—that’s far beyond their ability to comprehend? Finding pornography at an early age is usually very unsettling for kids. Unlike teens, who have […]

What Young People Wish They’d Known Earlier about Sex

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There’s a ton of information out there for teens and young adults today. Between sex ed at school, on-line resources, sexually active friends, chat rooms, and pornography, you might think that young people know everything they need to about sex. But it turns out, they don’t. When I asked 900 young adults (age 18 to […]

Ready for Sex? How to Know

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For most people, deciding when to have sex—the first time with a new partner, or especially the first time ever—is a significant decision. Becoming sexually intimate with someone can change your relationship. Sometimes, it’ll even change you. Plus, it’s hard to tell what the effects will be. For some people, sex, even the first time, […]

TalkStarter for Kids: “How I Learned about Puberty”

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Let’s face it: puberty and sex are awkward topics. And when you do gear yourself up to talk to your child about it, you probably get cringing and eye rolls. But you don’t want your kids to enter puberty and have no idea why their bodies are changing. Even if their school does a good […]

A First-Grade Lesson that Helps with the Birds and the Bees

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Back when my kids were in first grade, the teacher did a unit on distinguishing facts from opinions. Designed to help them learn critical thinking, it used examples like “Bananas are yellow” and “Bananas are better than apples,” then moved to more subtle kinds of communication. It was a great concept to introduce at an […]