Porn

More of our girls die by suicide than on mainland Europe – why?

Teen girl
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“Are you f*&king serious?” she asks me, looking at me in that angry / scared / amused way that only teens can do. I like this girl, this young woman. She’s valiant, honest and has a righteous rage.

I am serious I tell her. Really serious.

Moments earlier she’d whipped out her phone to show me an article that she read on the way to my office. The grim headline read: Ireland has the highest rate in Europe for young girls taking their own lives

And I had asked her why she thought this was the case.

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Happy International Women’s Day! (but not for all of us)

Violence against Women
| Sally O'Reilly
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So, here we are again. Every Year since 1908 we have celebrated International Women’s Day and while we have made huge strides in some areas, we have a very long way to go. 

Much has been written in the lead up to today. And much of it grim. I won’t go into the Tuam babies thing here.. (2018 edit –  Weinstein, #MeToo, Repeal the 8th debate, the women-being-ordained question, the sordid details of the rape (victim) trial, the pick-your-own-horror-story… ).To mark the day I thought I’d post a compilation of important pieces about how women are (still) being treated in the 21st century. It’s not terrifically cheery reading so you might want to stop now. I understand, I really do.

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Talking to your child about about sexting

| Sally O'Reilly
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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.

Sexting figures
Sexting figures – I don’t like the word ‘admitted’ but you see where I’m going..

 

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,

Sally O'Reilly Counselling & Psychotherapy

Some rule-setting ideas for parents, teens & technology

| Sally O'Reilly
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Setting boundaries and creating rules that feel reasonable and workable is a real challenge for parents. In recent years, one of the toughest challenges is what to do with all the tech in our homes.

 

What exact rules can we set? Not just for tweens and teens – but for ourselves too?

Technology in families: Sally O'Reilly Counselling & Psychotherapy

This topic emerges on an almost daily basis for me – professionally but also socially. And so I wrote this piece as an offering of guidelines – they are just guidelines. There is no right or wrong, and every family is different. I’m hoping this piece might help and inspire you if you are finding it hard to decide what rules to set with your own kids.

Click here for the full post!

In my next piece I’ll describe in more details how to decide what consequences to use when rules are broken – and as always please feel free to comment and give me your own tips!

Sally-sig[1]

 

 

Calvin Klein and the glamourisation of sexual harassment

| Sally O'Reilly
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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.

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The Revenge Porn debacle – and what we can do about it.

| Sally O'Reilly
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Some people are saying that the allegations about UCD male students posting “revenge porn” in a Facebook group with over 200 members is ‘unbelievable’. And as it turns out, the allegations went unsupported, there is no first hand evidence to support the claims.

For so many though, the story was totally believable. Some people still believe it, thinking – well can’t the evidence be deleted? Isn’t there sufficient shame around sexuality and sex crime to prevent victims from coming forward when invited, encouraged even?

One major piece that this has highlighted for me is this question: what made this story so believable? And I feel it’s because this happens now, we all know it. For any of us to say otherwise at this point is somewhat naive.

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Is technology destroying our relationships?

Family
| Sally O'Reilly
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Sharon Ní Conchuir, a freelance journalist, contacted me with some interesting questions about the impact of technology on our relationships.  It was interesting for me to revisit this subject with a different interviewer and offer some more tips on how we can better manage our online lives.

Q: What exactly is the lure of the internet and the various ways of communicating online? What is it that proves so seductive to people?

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