Parent, Teacher, Author
This week-end I’ll be giving a keynote address at a conference on sexual health. I believe that one of the most important issues that we can understand in terms of sexual health is sexual self-efficacy. When someone has sexual self-efficacy, she is able to see herself as a person who can make decisions about what happens to her sexually. He knows how to say yes and no to sexual behaviors and relationships. He knows how to ask for consent from a partner before engaging in sexual behaviors and how to demand that others ask for consent.
In order to help children thrive, parents need to connect with them through talking often and openly, build competence by providing kids with information about physical development and facts about sex and sexuality, and encourage confidence through helping kids think through specific scenarios that might cause difficulty and making a plan to handle them. In this series of posts, I’ll be sharing some specific examples of ways that parents and caring adults can help build the sexual self-efficacy of children and adolescents.