A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Without a doubt, American sexual education needs a lot of work. Only 25 states even mandate that it be taught in public schools, and only 13 states require those sex ed programs to be medically accurate. In 2016, a study published by the Guttmacher Institute found today's teens are actually receiving less education on topics like contraception and STI prevention than they [...]
One in seven high school students reported misusing prescription opioids, one of several disturbing results in a nationwide survey of teenagers that revealed a growing sense of fear and despair among youth in the United States. The numbers of teenagers reporting “feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” suicidal thoughts, and days absent from school out of fear of [...]
An honest chat with children about healthy, consensual sex could not come any sooner. Time and again, society fails to educate young people — particularly young women — about sexual health. What’s more, in the United States, abstinence-only sex education is the rule, not the exception — and studies show it actually hurts kids as they grow into adolescence. [...]
Talking about sex, sexuality, bodies and relationships in an open, honest way plays a big role in your young child’s sex education and sexual development. It’s also important to be prepared for answering your child’s questions about sex. Talking about sex and sexuality with young children It’s never too early to talk about sex with your child. [...]
The annual pilgrimage to schoolies for tens of thousands of high school graduates can throw up some tricky questions ... about sex. The migration of teenagers to different states creates murky legal dilemmas, particularly around the issue of consent. In Queensland, a popular destination for schoolies celebrations, the age of consent for sodomy is 18, compared [...]
Researchers said exposure to sexual content could be part of the reason for a historical decrease in the age young people were first having sex. "Sexualised content such as pornography has become normalised in today's society and provides a private and easily accessible way for young people to learn about sex and sexual norms," they [...]
New Zealand's chlamydia rate is getting worse because of excessive drinking by young people and a Hollywood-inspired culture of sex without commitment, specialists say. Nationally more than 8000 cases of the sexual infection were treated in clinics last year, up from 6959 in 2006. "We have all the media in the world encouraging people to [...]
Late adolescence is a period when many youth become involved in high-risk behaviors with adverse consequences. Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University studied the degree to which two such behaviors, adolescent sexual behaviors and gambling, affected African American youth in nine primary schools in Baltimore, MD. In [...]
In the weeks since that Miley Cyrus performance at the VMAs, more fuel has been poured onto the fiery debate around the overtly sexual messages our kids are receiving thanks to the media. Add this to the heady mix of alcohol, violence and drug use with the apparent rise of such related anti-social behaviour [...]
A 15-year-old boy confided in me after I addressed his class at a Sydney school last year. He cried as he told me he had been using porn since the age of nine. He didn’t have a social life, had few friends, had never had a girlfriend. His life revolved around online porn. He wanted [...]
