Writing for Slate magazine (11.18.2011), Amanda Marcotte points at several signs that “truly comprehensive sex education [is] an idea whose time has finally come.” For years now, she writes, the debate over sex education in the mainstream has been along the lines of, “Do we tell kids sex is an awful thing and they shouldn’t do it at all, or do we tell kids sex is an awful thing, but if they must, here’s how to be safe?” Marcotte argues for a third approach — a comprehensive sex education program that teaches young people to have not just healthy, but pleasurable sex.
Mother-Daughter Conflicts (Elizabeth Bernstein)
In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal ( ‘I’m Not Your Little Baby!’ Calling a Truce in Mother-Daughter Conflict, 4.24.12), columnist Elizabeth Bernstein examines the lifelong friction between mothers and daughters. The following is an excerpt.
It’s common for mother-daughter relations to be stormy in the daughter’s teen years. But why do mothers and daughters continue to push one another’s buttons well into adulthood?
Why Does My Teenager Fight with Me?
In an article that appeared in Domestic Intelligence (1.19.2009), psychologist and writer Dr. Terri Apter suggests that recent discoveries about the still-developing adolescent human brain and traditional explanations about raging teenage hormones do not sufficiently explain the teen’s experience of parents. And they therefore do not sufficiently help us understand why teenagers fight so much with their parents.
Do Women Like Child Care More Than Men? (Tara Parker-Pope)
This article by Tara Parker-Pope appeared in The New York Times Magazine (3.25.2012). I found it most interesting and thought I’d share it in its entirety.
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Once during a disagreement with my husband, I complained that he wasn’t helping enough with our daughter, and I gave him a long list of the parenting chores I was shouldering on my own. “But you like doing all that stuff,” he blurted in his defense.
Talking to Teens About Sex (Apter)
Terri Apter, PhD, a University of Cambridge researcher and leading authority on mothers and teen girls, offers a four-point plan to improve your next conversation. These ideas are taken from the May 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.
I would only add that many of these ideas are equally applicable to speaking with your teenage sons about sex.
The Art of Distraction
Real-estate mogul Barbara Corcoran describes how she struggled to pay attention in elementary school. She hadn’t learned to read by third grade, and accepted the label of “stupid” that the nuns had assigned to her.
From Drill Sergeant to Relaxed Parent
Parenting with Love and Logic® is a nation-wide program founded by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D. to help parents raise happy, responsible children (and to make parenting more enjoyable as a bonus). The following are some of the program’s key concepts, guidelines that can help parents take control of their home life in loving ways.
When Your Teen Misbehaves
Children who misbehave usually do so for a purpose, taught U.S. psychiatrist and educator Rudolf Dreikurs. Misbehaving children and teens are acting out a feeling or need that they are unable to convey or express. Such a need might be: a need for attention when s/he is feeling ignored or neglected; a resentment over being controlled; a fear that s/he is not loved or lovable; or a feeling of inadequacy or helplessness.