One popular news site today posted these two headline links in consecutive order:
1. FDA Approves Morning-After Pill For Over-the-Counter sales Age 15 and Up
2. Doctor: Gonorrhea super bug worse than Aids
On the one hand the FDA has just approved a drug that will encourage sexual activity among teenagers. On the other hand national health organizations are sounding the alarm about an antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea. Read more…
by William Bigelow
Middle-school California kids, now you can be as sexually profligate as you want to be–and your parents don’t even have to know about it! The California Condom Access Project, run by the California Health Council, which is making condoms available for kids as young as 12 in an online, taxpayer-funded condom delivery service, has expanded their service to include San Diego and Fresno counties. Read more…
This shows why Ruth Institute’s work is so important, and our mission is so needed! We give students the intellectual tools they need, so we are dealing with reasons 8, 7 and 6, quite directly. And we are also dealing with 2 and 3 b/c we get beyond the “rules” and give the reasons. We also focus on what we are positively for, instead of what we are against. -JRM
by Jim Daly
Of all the hats I wear in life, the one I enjoy most may be that of “dad.”
As much fun as Trent, Troy, and I have together, whether it’s camping or just throwing the ball around, not a day goes by that I don’t give serious thought to how my wife, Jean, and I are leading them spiritually. In the grand scheme of things, we only a have a short window to help them build a solid biblical foundation before they launch out on their own.
If you’re a parent, I’m guessing you’re well aware of how challenging that can be. Even the statistics bear out the struggle we face. The exact percentages are up for debate, but we know that a significant number of kids walk out the church doors after high school graduation and never return.
Why? Read more…
by Carolyn Moynihan
Alarming figures for ADHD in the United States were published over the weekend. They suggest that as many as one in five high school age boys have been diagnosed as suffering from “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder”, while 11 percent of all school-age children have received such a diagnosis. That’s around 6.4 million children, representing a 53 percent rise in the past decade, reports the New York Times. Read more…
December 20th, 2012
Betsy
by Carolyn Moynihan
Major health organisations want all teenage girls to have a supply of morning-after pills on hand. Are they crazy?
Recently the American Academy of Pediatrics called on all US pediatricians to counsel all their adolescent patients about post-coital contraception and make advance prescriptions for it available to girls under 17. The move came as no surprise. The AAP Committee on Adolescence has been advocating over-the-counter sales — or, failing that, advance prescriptions — of the morning after pill for all those in its purview for nearly a decade, as has the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Read more…
December 19th, 2012
Betsy
By Michael, on December 17th, 2012
When are we finally going to admit that we have a very serious problem with this generation of young men in America? We have failed them so dramatically that it is hard to put it into words. We have raised an entire generation of young males that don’t know how to be men, and many of them feel completely lost. Sometimes they feel so lost that they “snap” in very destructive ways. Adam Lanza and James Holmes are two names that come to mind. Why is it that mass murderers are almost always young men? Read more…
December 10th, 2012
Betsy
by William West
Parents concerned about losing touch with their children as the teen years approach may take some encouragement from a new study indicating that young teens can spend more time with their parents.
The study at Pennsylvania State University tracked nearly 200 families and found that kids in early adolescence spent increasing amounts of one-on-one time with parents and that this only began to change from the age of 15.
The study also found that the period during which teens spent extra time with the fathers can be very productive, particularly in boosting self-esteem and social skills.
Director of the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State, Susan McHale told CNN:
“The stereotype that teenagers spend all their time holed up in their rooms or hanging out with friends is, indeed, just a stereotype. Our research shows that, well into the adolescent years, teens continue to spend time with their parents and that this shared time, especially shared time with fathers, has important implications for adolescents’ psychological and social adjustment.”
The research was carried out over a period of seven years and looked at families with at least two children.
This was written by a good friend of mine on her blog, A Heroic Moment. I found this entry inspirational, moving, brilliant, and deserving of a wider readership. Enjoy!
Unless you’re a teacher, you just have no idea.
No idea how much it takes out of you. How many times you will be awake, alone in the family room, still grading papers, and you will read something written by a student–a student you love and pray for–that will quite simply break your heart.
Something like this: “Marriage is nothing more than a tether for insecure people to prove their relationship is real and feel validated.” Read more…
by Carolyn Moynihan
This last paragraph is most key:
However, evidence that sexual activity does not increase among young teenagers vaccinated should not alleviate concern about the general sexualization of this age group and its effects on physical and moral health. Nearly a third of children 14 to 19 years old are said to be infected with HPV. If that is correct, there is a lot to worry about that the HPV vaccine cannot address. Its very necessity shows how badly a generation of children has been let down by the collapse of social support for pre-marital chastity. Read more…
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