Respond

As always in your discussion, respond thoughtfully to this 2 postings.

Crhistian post:

The Buddy System; Sex in High School and College: What’s Love Got to Do With It?: [FINAL Edition]

 It is true that teens nowadays are totally different from the teens 10 or 15 years ago and this totally understandable due to the change of lifestyle, technology, education. They are more knowledgeable to almost everything at early age. They act like an adult, talk like adult but in selected manner. Sex in high school and college is no news few years ago, and there’s no solid study, evidence and prevention of why and how they are doing this. In some cases, “love” is being blamed when caught red-handed. In this topic, it can be said that “sex is just sex, no more, no less”. This activity by teens are more like lust, fulfilling their physical needs. Lust is more of physical attraction wherein love is emotional attraction (Borresen K., 2018). One of the issues of this activity is, when an individual is ready to enter a serious relationship, he/she will have a hard time on figuring out who and who would she/he knows that’s the person for him/her.

A boy’s life Tyler’s gender identity changes, and he and his family are happy

            In this topic, it shows the support from the parents and how the parents trust their child. Before, not all parents agree with this, they don’t believe about gender change or whatever. Nowadays, it is more accepted not only by them but to the whole community. A parent must be open to his/her child when it comes to this matter. They should talk and listen to their children and don’t consider this as rebellion (Staff, 2017). Parents should respect child’s decisions at some point. It is true that they gave and did everything to raise their child properly and they also should understand that such decision by their child doesn’t mean they did something wrong when raising them. Going against it won’t help the situation. Understanding and learning more about it will guide both the parent and the child. This topic is a good example of parents as a good listener to their child.

The Latest Sexual Revolution: A Generation content to wait

            This topic is somehow a counterpart of the “buddy system”. Some people are having sex for many different reasons. Some are doing this as an outlet of pain after a breakup from a relationship, some just want to experience it and there are others who just like to do it as many times as possible. Others put values on sex, it is something you and your partner should be having together. It is connection between partners where brains release neurochemicals when having intercourse (Dick R., 2018). To some individual, it is not something that he/she can rush. Some individuals are being pressured by their friends who had sex before, which is shouldn’t be happening. It’s an individuals’ choice if he/she wants to do it now or not. This means they’re not in control of themselves and their decisions, resulting breakups to a lot painful than it should be. (Dick R., 2018). Sex will come to almost every individual, wait for it to come, rushing something comes with consequences.

They’re having babies. Are we helping?

            Consequence as view from others and blessing to others. It is a lifetime commitment and it includes another life when someone gets pregnant. A teen getting pregnant is a lot harder than an adult getting pregnant. They’re too young to have parent’s responsibility. If it has done, parent/s must accept and support their child. It will be selfish if they will ignore, worst, abandon their child after getting pregnant. Not all will accept this mind set, but if a life is existing in the mother’s womb, as an adult, knowing better and the difference between right and wrong, must show support to the teen and give them guidance and at the same time giving them the lesson learned from their unnecessary actions. Teens on the other hand must learn from this and they can’t just rely on the adults guiding them and pass all the responsibility to their parents. Teens having babies are still teens, they are not as ready to be a parent, they will need a lot of guidance from the parents and other adults, not disciplining (Koffman O., 2009).

What Parents Can do?

            Values coming from home is very important. Parenting nowadays is different, children are more informed about the world through technology. Therefore, parents must do some adjustments on the parenting style. They need to be more open to their children, more specific of what’s wring from wrong and discussing some realities of life. At some point, parents will have to discuss some things to their children about love, relationship and sex. Today, parents can’t be discreet or hiding facts when it comes to this matter. It is always better to have this knowledge and first conversations between the parent and child than child to other people. Parenting today is more of relational and emotional health (Wagenhals D., n.d.).

An article below is good guide about parenting and sexuality. It offers some tips on how to communicate with parent’s children. Discussing about consent, instinct, demonstrating healthy boundaries, values about sexuality, etc. It feels better when a parent knows he/she is still connected with his/her child even though they reach adolescence and young adulthood to full adulthood. In order to build this connection, they must have their children aware that they will always listen and can always have conversation with them. Boundaries must be set at early age, monitoring or supervision of child’s use of gadgets is important. Educating them about body parts, touches and creating an environment where they can discuss about sex (McCarthy C., 2018). These are some ways to help parents on how to approach their children about sensitive matters like sex or sexuality.

References:

Borresen K. (2018, June 21). The Difference Between Lust and Love, According to Relationship Experts. Retrieved from HuffPost:

Dick R. (2018, October 31). 3 Reasons Why Sex Can Wait: Part 1. Creating Positive Relationships. Retrieved from

Koffman O. (2009, October 6). Second Thoughts: Supporting teenage mothers. Retrieved from The Guardian:

McCarthy C. (2018, February 6). 4 things all parents should do to help prevent sexual abuse. Harvard Health Publishing. Retrieved from

Staff. (2017, September 1). Children and gender identity: Support your child. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic:

Wagenhals D. (n.d.). Why is so Hard to Parent Today? The big picture of parental responsibility. Retrieved from Care for Parenting Educaiton:

Chanicua post:

Transgender at 5

For one, I was very shocked to know that there are children that old that have already decided that there was something not right about them selves. In this article, Tyler was only 3 when he asked him mom why she had changed him to a girl. I would not of thought any 3 year old would say that or even know how to comprehend that if it wasn’t just part of them. I like how Tyler’s parents were supportive even though it must have been hard, especially for church because not all churches are ok with transgender people and they are not very accepted at some churches. I never really thought about how much it would change a child once they could be the gender that they wanted to be. In the article Dvorak stated that there were studies that showed children doing better in life after their parents allowed them to chance. They would have better behavior, schoolwork would improve, and they would have a smile again. I guess its like they were finally at ease on who they knew they were the whole time.

Dvorak,Petula(2012).”Transgender at 5.” The Washington Post. Retrieved 

Teen sex bad??

This article was an interesting read because I thought that it would be an obvious answer of wait until you are married. After reading the article and just thinking about it, I can see why the Europeans could come up with that. It makes me think about younger children, if you have a box and you bring it in the house and everyone sees it and you tell them don’t look inside, that is going to be their main goal. You have brought something different in the house and you didn’t tell them what it was, you just told them not to go inside the box, which automatically boost their minds to want to know what was in the box. Now on the other hand if you brought a box in the house and told everyone that there was a pink glitter ball inside, they may want to see but they wont be as tempted because you have already enclosed what they couldn’t see. I think maybe that is the way they are thinking, if you keep pushing teens not to have sex, they will just try to hide it and then end up doing it anyways but maybe catching an STD or even getting pregnant. If you would have talked to them openly about it and there wasn’t such a strain on staying away and did the necessary prepping then maybe they would have talked to you about the whole situation.

Teen Sex Bad?; Americans and Western Europeans Don’t Agree on What’s Normal and Acceptable. But Many Health Experts Do: [FINAL Edition] byAgnvall, Elizabeth.The Washington Post; Washington, D.C. [Washington, D.C]16 May 2006: F.1.

They’re having babies. Are we helping?

I totally get what Welsh is saying but I think that this maybe something that we have to live with. There are many options for teens out there that get pregnant and there are also ways those parents and teens can try to prevent themselves from getting pregnant. The way that pregnancy looks to some teens isn’t realistic. All they see is the help that they get, what that doesn’t always last. The main thing that we can do is keep educating our children and teens in the community and make sure that they know that there are preventive measures that they could follow if they do choose to be sexually active.  I get the point that Welsh also makes by saying that we are helping them and making it seems like it is easy, but we are just trying to help them better them salves because at the end of the day it isn’t about the teen anymore but about the child that they have or is about to have. Pregnancy can be hard thing to go through let alone high school. With the extra help it does make things easier but then there are still things that you have to do on your own. I think that the schools as just trying to keep these girls out of the statistic so that their children can live better lives. By helping these mothers out it helps them to go to school which in turns helps them finish school so that they can do something with their lives or later even go off to college.

Welsh, P. (2008). They’re Having Babies. Are We Helping? The Washington Post. Retrieved from 

What can Parents do?

I agree with this article. I feel like if parents were closer and more open with their teens maybe teens wouldn’t want to hide it and would openly talk about it. Like the article stated knowing whom your children hang out with and associate with will help you out a lot. If they are hanging out with people that are sexually active then that is the perfect time to talk to you children and maybe get them some contraceptive for just in case. It is also important to let them know that you care about their future and what you would like out of them. 

What Can Parents Do?: [FINAL Edition] from The Washington Post; Washington, D.C. [Washington, D.C]16 May 2006: F.4.

2. If not going to school wasn’t hard enough, imagine being LGBTQ. Statistics show from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, it shows that nationwide, more U.S. high school students who self-identify as LGB report to having been bullied on school property 33% and cyber bullied 27.1% in the past year, than their heterosexual peers at 13.3%. They are also likely not to attend school because they do not feel that they are in a safe environment. As a whole community and education system I think that we need to put our personal feeling aside and just remember that they are still human beings and they deserve to be protected to. They are programs and support groups that school can put into place to help these select ones that are going through a hard time because of how they identify as.

LGBTQ Youth. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2019, from

3. I honestly think that best thing that you can do is have communication with your children so you can try to get a head of this because it’s inevitable. Your cant protect your children from everything, but what you can do is make sure that they are educated and prepared so that when they are faced with a situation, they know how to handle it because you have gave them the information that they need.