I’ve been asked a few times since it aired if I’ve met kids like Jamie. Truth? I have, yes.
Continue readingHave you watched Adolescence yet?
Sex Education
Happy (?) International Womens’ Day… I guess…
Yesterday a guy explained to me that most women would be up for crying rape if they thought the guy they just had sex with had money.
Continue readingWhat are we teaching our teens?
It was a Friday, and I was sitting on a desk in a school classroom, all excited. Friday had become my favourite day of the week, not because weekend, but because that was the day to deliver my personal development and sex education class to a bunch of sparkly bright teenagers. Fun guaranteed!
Continue readingSexting – stuck on how to talk to your kids?
Some of you will have read a piece on sexting a while back. Here’s the ‘how-to’ follow up.
So before we start into it, I want you to know that I do understand that some parents would rather stick a needle in their ear that talk about sex or sexting, even to each other! But the somewhat annoying reality it this – we are the grown ups and it’s our job to do this.
Otherwise porn will do it for you.
‘Nudes’ and ‘three-ways’ are already part of the vernacular for the average thirteen year old.
Can you remember being thirteen?
Continue readingA mum’s letter to her sons: Don’t settle for consent
I have a friend – well, I know and admire a woman who might yet be a friend – and this morning I woke to find an email from her in my inbox, with a recording attached. She’s a journalist and normally an email from her means she’s writing a piece and is interested in my professional opinion on the topic. We’ve been back and forth-ing for a couple of years and, as you do, we’ve been rearranging the boundaries a little more each time.
Teach your Son not to be “that guy”.
Have you been affected by the #MeToo campaign?
I am a huge fan of finding ways to empower ourselves and act to be the change we want. With that in mind I wrote this piece as a “what we can do” response to the Weinstein and consequent #MeToo outpourings on social media – an outpouring I warmly welcome and enthusiastically embrace!
The full piece is on FamilyFriendlyHQ – click on the pic to get there:
Talking to your child about about sexting
In my last piece I asked a scary question – Is your child sexting?
And here is the follow-up piece with some suggestions on how to introduce the conversation to your child. And even though it says ‘teen’ in the title – I wrote this with younger children in mind too.
Because as you may or may not know, children as young as ten are accessing porn and are being pressured into sexting. So it’s a very real concern that has a lot pf parents worried and feeling powerless. Hopefully, this will help. And if you have any other tips from your own experience and wisdom please do share them below.
Click here to read the post
Warmly,
Sexting – the ‘new first base’
Now I know that thinking about your child sexting is not on your list of fun things to do for the weekend… Continue reading
Porn ain’t what it used to be!
I was catching up on my Facebook messages earlier and this post sent to me by a friend really caught my eye. It’s a meme from one of those humour pages on Facebook. Judging by the comments it resonates with most people and they think it’s really funny! (It is too – I mean who hasn’t waited years for a plumber?!!)
Calvin Klein and the glamourisation of sexual harassment
You’ve probably already heard about the new Calvin Klein advertising campaign. It’s worked, that’s for sure, in that Twitter and Facebook can’t get enough of complaining about it. And of course the pro-sexism and creepy factions can’t get enough of defending it and lashing out at people who recognise it for what it is – blatant sexist glamourisation of and dismissal of sexual harassment.