Tag: #girlpower

Tag: #girlpower

What should I teach my high school-aged teen about sex and sexuality? (Age 14- 19years)

It’s normal for teens to have many questions and lots of thoughts and feelings about sex and sexuality, and parents have an important role to play. Here are some tips for talking with your teen about sex.

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What should I keep in mind?

Parents really make a difference. Teens who have frequent conversations with their parents about a variety of topics related to sex are more likely to delay sex until they are older, and use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do become sexually active. Most teens name their parents as the biggest influence in their decisions about sex.

Many schools teach sex education that includes information on abstinence, safer sex, birth control, and relationships— which is great. But nothing compares to the influence you have as a parent on a day-to-day basis. That’s why talking about sex and sexuality at home is important even if your teen is getting the right facts at school.

It’s important for you to share your personal values and beliefs about sex. If you spend some time thinking about your personal values and what you’d want for your teen, it will be easier to send a clear message when you do talk about sex with your teen. Consider

  • When do you think it would be acceptable for them to have sex?
  • Do you want them to be in a committed relationship or married first?
  • Do you want them to be out of high school?

If you are clear about your hopes for your teen, they’ll be more likely to adopt those hopes and feelings too. No matter what your expectations, it’s also important to talk about ways people can protect themselves during sex by using birth control and condoms. This will arm your teen with important information and let them know that they can talk with you about this stuff.

It’s not just about talking. Having a good relationship with your teen and setting boundaries is important, too. Talking about your values, expectations, birth control and condoms is important. But so is having a close relationship with your teen that’s based on respect for each other.

Research shows that teens are less likely to take risks — like having unprotected sex, doing drugs, drinking, or smoking — when they feel they have a close relationship with a parent. Staying involved in their life, listening to them, and sharing your life and interests with them can help you build a closer relationship with your teen.

Setting boundaries for your teen can also help them avoid risky situations. Here are some things you can do:

  • Limit the amount of time your teen is allowed to spend with other teens without an adult around.
  • Discourage your teen from having friends who are much older than them.
  • Get to know your teen’s friends and (if possible) their parents.
  • Ask your teen about where they’re going and where they’ve been.
  • Give your teen a curfew.

How do I help my teen wait to have sex until they’re ready?

In addition to talking with them about your hopes for them around sex, it helps to understand why teens may be motivated to have sex. Here are 7 common reasons teens choose to have sex and some suggestions for how you can respond to them:

1. “I’ll feel more grown up.”
As they physically mature and have more and more independence, some teens feel they’re ready for sex and that having it will make them even more mature and independent.

Possible ways to respond:

  • “I can understand you wanting to feel more grown up. What are some others ways that you can feel grown up without having sex?”
  • “If you have sex and something unexpected happens, like getting pregnant or getting an STD, how would you handle that? How would that affect your future?”
  • “Being grown up means dealing with the responsibilities that go along with sex. Can you tell me what you think those responsibilities are?”

2. “I know I would enjoy sex.”
For many teens, life is about the “right here” and “right now.” Teens may have a hard time weighing the short-term benefits — physical pleasure or emotional satisfaction — against the possible, and more serious, consequences — STDs and/or unintended pregnancy. And before being able to really enjoy sex, your teen and their partner need to have consent.

Possible ways to respond:

  • “Sex might seem like a good idea right now, but it can have some serious consequences. Have you thought about pregnancy or STDs?”
  • “I know you think it’ll feel good to have sex. But there are a lot of ways to feel good and be close to someone without having sex.”
  • “Sex needs to be about your enjoyment as well as your partner’s enjoyment. You have to know for sure that they want to do what you want to do. Are you ready to talk about that with your partner?”

3. “It’s okay if I have sex because everybody’s doing it.”
Teens often think that more of their peers are sexually active than actually are. Give your teen the facts.

Possible ways to respond:

  • “No they’re not. On average, teens start having vaginal sex at 18.”
  • “Many teens who’ve had sex say they wish they’d waited.”

4. “I believe in having sex if I truly love the other person.” / “I want to feel closer to my partner.” / “Having sex is the best way to show my partner I love them.”
Many teens believe that they’ll lose their partner if they don’t have sex. Others believe that they need to have sex to show their partners that they love them. And teens may not think about other ways of showing their feelings besides having sex.

They also need to know that pressuring your partner to have sex is never okay, and can be a sign of an unhealthy or abusive relationship.

Possible ways to respond:

  • “In a truly loving relationship, your partner respects you and doesn’t pressure you to have sex. Is your [boyfriend/girlfriend/partner] pressuring you?”
  • “Sex can be a special way of sharing love with someone. But you should be loved whether or not you have sex. Let’s think of other ways you can share love without having sex.”

5. “I know people who had sex at a young age, so why can’t I?” / “You had sex at a young age — I can handle the consequences just like you did.”
People don’t always tell the whole story when it comes to how they deal with the responsibilities and consequences of sex. And because their brains aren’t fully developed, teens can’t realistically think through all the risks that having sex poses. You can help your teen with this — you might choose to tell your own story as one way to do that.

Possible ways to respond:

  • “It’s true. I had sex when I was your age, so it’s probably confusing for me to suggest you wait. But I really wish I’d waited longer. I wasn’t ready and I had to go through a lot because of it.”
  • “When I was in high school I thought that I would stay with my partner forever.  But I’m glad I waited to have sex, that I used birth control and condoms. I got to go to school, get a job, and have money of my own before I had a child.”

6. “If I have sex, I’ll finally know what it’s like.”
For many teens, curiosity plays a big role in choosing to have sex.

Possible way to respond:

  • “I can understand why you might be curious, but that’s not a good reason to have sex. Sex is a really important decision.”

7. “Other people will like me more if I have sex.”
Many teens believe that they’ll be more popular with their peers and more attractive to their crushes if they have sex. You can help them understand that sex should be about how you feel, and not about what people think of you.

Possible ways to respond:

  • “It may seem like sex is a good way to become popular, but that’s not a good reason to do it. You should only have sex because you want to and because the time is right for you.”
  • “How do you think your friends feel about you having sex? Do you think that’s what a true friend would think? Do you feel pressured?”

You can support them in waiting even more by helping them think through how they’ll say no to sex in the moment. Ask them what they think someone might say to convince them they should have sex. They can practice what they’ll say back. They might come up with things like:

  • “It’s just not for me.”
  • “We are too young for that responsibility.”
  • “My plans for the future are more important than having sex right now.”
  • “I don’t feel like it.”
  • “Why are you trying so hard when I told you, ‘no’?”
  • “My mom would be really upset.”
  • “I might get sick or pregnant.”
  • “It’s against my religion.”
  • “NO.”

How do I talk to my teen about STDs and safer sex?

STDs are super common, and most people will get one at some point in their lives. Young people in the US ages 15-24 have the highest risk of getting an STD — they make up a small part of the sexually active population, but get half of all new STDs each year.

You don’t need to be an expert in sexual health to help your teen avoid STDs. Encourage your teen to learn about safer sex. You can even read about it together. Let them know that if they’re going to have sex, you expect them to use protection, like a condom, every single time. If they might have vaginal sex, it’s also important to talk about birth control. Remind your teen that no matter what, you love them, and they can always come to you if they’re worried about STDs or anything else.

Here are some really important things your teen needs to understand when it comes to safer sex:

  1. Every time you have vaginal, anal, or oral sex without a condom or dental dam, you’re putting yourself at risk for STDs. Teens don’t always think oral sex counts as “sex,” and they don’t know that they can catch an STD that way.
  2. STDs don’t always have symptoms. Most people actually don’t have any symptoms when they have an STD, so they don’t even know they have one. But they can still spread them to other people and cause problems.
  3. Getting tested for STDs is really easy. While it’s great if your teen comes to you for help getting tested, they should know that they don’t need parental permission to get tested for STDs. They can always go to a local health center like Planned Parenthood to get tested if they’re worried about something, if the condom breaks, or if they didn’t use a condom.

How do I talk to my teen about masturbation?

It’s totally normal for teens to masturbate. Masturbation is safe, pleasurable, can reduce stress or period-related cramps and has no bad side effects. It’s also the safest sex there is.  There’s no need to be alarmed if you find out your teen is masturbating. Masturbating can satisfy sexual feeling and help teens get to know their own bodies.

Teens hear lots of myths about masturbation — that only guys do it, or that everybody does it so if they don’t do it that means they’re “weird.” The truth is that people of all genders masturbate, but not everybody does it. It’s normal if you do it, and it’s normal and OK if you don’t.  Letting your teens know these facts can help them to deal with the myths they may hear.

During adolescence, teens tend to desire more privacy and feel more self-conscious about their bodies. Whether they masturbate or not, your teen is probably going to want more privacy than they did when they were younger. So let them keep their bedroom door closed if they want and knock before you go into their room.

But what if you forget to knock and walk in on your teen masturbating? Find a quiet time later on to let them know that what they were doing is normal. And tell them you’ll try harder to respect their privacy. You’ll both probably be embarrassed about it, but that’s ok.

How do I talk to my teen about pornography?

Pornography or sexually explicit pictures and videos are easy to find. In fact, many children and teens first see porn accidentally when they are looking for something else online. It’s very likely your teen has seen some porn on the internet — and some teens are watching it regularly.

Most young people who look at pornography do so out of curiosity about other people’s bodies and about sex. But porn can lead to unrealistic expectations. So let your teen know that porn sex isn’t like real sex.

For example, the models’ and actors’ bodies usually don’t look like the average person’s body. Their bodies are cosmetically, and often surgically or hormonally, enhanced. The kinds of sex that people have in pornography generally doesn’t reflect what people do and like to do when they have sex in real life and the amount of time it takes for people to get excited and that they stay excited in porn is usually completely unrealistic.

Another example of negative messages in pornography is the lack of communication between actors — verbal or nonverbal — before, during, and after sex. They usually don’t ask for consent, which is always a must in real-life sex. And the actors in pornography don’t usually appear to use birth control or condoms.

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The Story Of The Woman Who Founded Protect A Girls’ Image.

                                Source: https://shiksstorytime.blogspot.com/2022/01/about-pgio-founder-ive-had-theprivilege.html

Founder protect a girls image

I’ve had the privilege to hear the inspiring story of the PGIO founder and this is a short overview.

She was just a young girl when she first met a handsome man and got married but little did she know the character development she was in for. Her first husband was young as well and didn’t know much about relationships much like most of us in this generation and their lack of knowledge costed them a lot.

Fast forward to when they got their first son. He was very adorable but had a chest condition. So one fateful day the son got sick. His chest was clogged and he could barely breath and on this particular day it so happened the husband came home drunk and couldn’t fathom reality. He was so drunk that when his wife tried to wake him so they could take the son to hospital, he wouldn’t budge.

She did what any terrified mother would have done; in her night gown and barefoot, she carried her son through the night to the hospital. Luckily, she used to stay with her sister so she had someone to accompany her. But the unfortunate part was that she didn’t have enough funds to even get a taxi or pay for consultation hence the waking her husband part.

We all know that traditionally, men are the providers and women are the nurturers so in essence she needed her husband to help her out financially especially at that trying time. All in all, they managed to get to the hospital but unfortunately the son never made it. She was so devastated and depressed. One can imagine carrying a baby for nine months only to lose him barely a year after he has been born, the toll it would have on you is profound.

Being a strong woman, she managed to recover and was blessed with another healthy son. Luckily this time round she had work and could somewhat manage to take care of them both even if she still had her husband in their homestead. Three years later they had another baby; a daughter this time but was born premature. Meaning she had to juggle work, going to the hospital to be with her baby and getting home to her son and husband.

However stressful it was, she managed and having her sister by her side helped. After months she managed to bring her baby home but to an emotionally distant husband. It was devastating for her cause we all know having friends and especially family by your side during trying times helps with the emotional turmoil one might be going through especially one that comes with Postpartum Depression, but having a caring and loving husband to comfort you is just divine.

She powered through the marriage and tried to keep it together for the sake of the kids until she couldn’t anymore and had to leave. She went through lengths to take care of her two babies: from living in a single room to sleeping on a blanket on the floor with her kids as they wore warm jackets, since they didn’t have anything to cover themselves with.

Let’s just say the universe favored her and even though there were challenges involved, she managed to put the kids through school even till college.

Her experience softened her heart to every woman and child living out there in hardship and she vowed to help in every way she can, hence, the Protect A Girls Image initiative. It is a faith-based humanitarian organization that exists to bring positive transformation to vulnerable children and their families. It helps support sexual assault survivors, facilitate prevention through education and takes necessary steps to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice.

Here is a link to the Website https://protectagirlsimage.org/ Feel free to check it out, contact us for any inquiries. Visitations and donations are welcome!

 

Have a blessed rest of your day,

Kind regards.

Top 7 things You Should Teach Your Daughters Now.

top 7 things you should teach your daughters in 2020

Despite all the progress made, our society still puts women through the wringer emotionally.

From impossible body standards to victim-blaming, to the pressure to always put others before themselves, there is a whole lot for women to deal with from their teens and beyond.

Although parents and caregivers can’t shield girls from the world, there’s a great deal they can do to prevent them from internalizing damaging societal messages. But what are the most important lessons to teach?

Parents need to teach the most crucial emotional skills girls need to learn to navigate the world more effectively.

Here are some skills to consider teaching your daughter by the time she is a teenager.

1. How to respect and express her feelings.

We often neglect to teach our girls emotional intelligence because the popular stereotype is that females are good at getting in touch with their feelings and communicating them.

In real sense, when women are overcome by emotions, they become incapable of making decisions. Emotional Intelligence means having the ability to describe and express the full range of human emotion.

But when girls are taught to value being happy and liked overall, they often suppress or can’t acknowledge more difficult experiences.

It’s recommended that parents “authorize” their daughters’ emotions. When your girls express authentic emotions, even if they’re difficult, you take them seriously.

You don’t deny them or challenge them.

 

2. How to feel beautiful and have a positive relationship with her body.

Lost in a sea of selfies and reality television, girls might not know how to view themselves beyond objects of desire.

Teach your daughter that she is beautiful because of who she is in her heart and mind, not because of how she looks or how she dresses.

Point out that, as cheesy as it sounds, real beauty does come from within. Help her understand that trying to be sexy won’t make her beautiful, because she is already beautiful without changing her appearance.

Build her confidence in who she is apart from her looks and explain to her that confidence translates into beauty.

Make sure her Dad is telling her how beautiful she is too.

Also, Parents should discuss sex and know and use the right names for genitalia and do their best to “represent sex as a healthy, beautiful experience that should be had with joy and consent.”

That means talking about what consent means early on and emphasizing that a girl’s body belongs to her alone.

 

3.  How to stand up for herself.

Studies show that girls are encouraged by both parents and teachers to be sweet and conciliatory.

And while we don’t want to send our daughters into the world with a chip on their shoulder and their fists raised looking for a fight, we need to let them know that it is okay to stand up for themselves and voice their beliefs and opinions.

So tell your daughter that she can express herself strongly, but respectfully.

And, if someone is mistreating her, empower her to say, “I don’t really like the way you’re treating me, so I’m going to go now.”

 

 4. How to understand boys.

Boys and girls do have differences when it comes to their brains.

Boys are more visual. Boys have more testosterone than women.

These biological facts make boys and girls think differently, and approach life and problem-solving differently.

Teach your daughter that she has great value, not just because she is a girl, but because she is a person and that boys are not better or more valuable than girls.

 

Check out these Mental Health Issues Resulting from Sexual Assault!!

 

5. How to learn from friendships

Girls are frequently told that friendships are paramount, and that may be why they can be so singularly focused on those relationships.

Relationships help girls learn to assert themselves, compromise, and set boundaries.

Parents should view friendships as an opportunity to show girls what healthy relationships look like and how they can relate to others and themselves.

Encouraging her to communicate honestly and reasonably assert herself, provides her with skills that she’ll need to push for a raise as an adult.

 

6. How to work hard and have faith.

Help your daughter understand that working hard is the key to moving forward in life.

Reward her hard work with praise. Point out the link in her own life between her hard work and success.

A strong faith will help your daughter navigate the challenges of life. It will serve as the basis for her standards and the choices she makes.

Teach her about the power of faith. Teach her how to strengthen her faith. Pray with her.

 

7. How to feel self-compassion

It’s easy to be one’s most unforgiving critic, no matter gender.

But girls get a lot of messages that it’s important to please others. So when they experience a setback, it often feels like letting someone else down.

Research shows that adolescent girls may be exposed to more interpersonal stress than boys. That makes them more likely to ruminate on negative feelings, which puts them at greater risk for depression.

To help prevent this cycle of suffering, parents should teach their daughters how to deal with failure. What we want is for girls to have is the capacity to move through a setback without beating themselves up.

This means teaching a girl how to relate to herself and practice self-compassion in a moment of crisis. It’s important that instead of criticizing herself harshly, she focuses on the universality of disappointment and practice self-kindness.

By realizing others share that experience, she’ll be better prepared to treat herself compassionately and develop resilience.

 

8. How to deal with the online world.

Help your daughter see that the online world is not the real world.

Be sure that she’s spending more time with you and your family than with her online community.

The more time that she spends online, the greater her chances of feeling discouraged about what other girls have that she doesn’t, be it their clothes, their bodies, or their boyfriends.

What else are you trying to teach your pre-teen daughter? Share your comments below.

 

RELATED CONTENT:

Lack Of Sex Education Is A Major Crisis.

Fighting Against Gender-Based Violence During The COVID-19 Pandemic.

Poverty and Depression As A Result of Covid-19 Has Affected The Youth In Kenya.

 

Top 7 things you need to teach your child about sex and consent.

Being a parent is compiled of so many firsts and big moments you look forward to with your children. One of them most parents do not look forward to is Sex Education. Most parents find this conversation very uncomfortable. Let’s face it, my generation really didn’t get much talks as our parent’s generation did not talk about Sex at all!! But in this generation, I am surprised that 10 year olds know about Sex and it’s not from our parents, but from the internet, movies and magazines.

Why don’t Victims of Sexual Assault come forward sooner?

 

WHY DON’T VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT COME FORWARD SOONER?

 

Reasons why sexual assault survivors don't come forward sooner.

Sexual assault survivors don’t come forward sooner due to shame, guilt, denial, and fear of the consequences that might follow them.

It is very common for victims of sexual assault to not disclose their trauma as soon as it happens that is if they ever do. But since everybody in the world is continually confused by why women don’t come forward, I offer some information based on the psychology of abuse to help answer this question.

To make sure we are all in the same page, when I talk about Sexual harassment and behaviors, I include cat calling, inappropriate touching, invasion of privacy, sexual jokes, sexual bribery, and coercion just to mention a few.

Below I have listed the most significant reasons why women do not come forward more often or delay in coming forward.

  • Shame

One of the primary reasons women don’t come forward to report sexual harassment or assault is shame. Sexual abuse, by its very nature, is humiliating and dehumanizing. The victim feels invaded and defiled, while simultaneously feeling the indignity of being helpless and at the mercy of another person.

Shame is a feeling deep within us of being exposed and unworthy. When we feel ashamed, we want to hide. We hang our heads, stoop our shoulders, and curve inward as if trying to make ourselves invisible. Most people who have been deeply shamed take on the underlying and pervasive belief that they are broken, unworthy and unlovable.

Victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault in adulthood or sexual abuse in childhood tend to feel shame, because as human beings, we want to believe that we have control over what happens to us. When that personal power is challenged by a victimization of any kind, we feel humiliated. We believe we should have been able to defend ourselves. And because we weren’t able to do so, we feel helpless and powerless. This powerlessness causes humiliation  which leads to shame.

  • Denial, Minimization

Many women refuse to believe that the treatment they endured was actually abusive. They downplay how much they have been harmed by sexual harassment and even sexual assault. They convince themselves that “it wasn’t a big deal.” I know a lot of women who were brutally raped, and I have friends who were sexually abused in childhood. So when a scenario of a girl being sexually harassed by her boss arose, she said that it was nothing compared to what these women went through. She tells herself to just move on and forget the whole thing.

Other women are good at making excuses for their abusers. I have often heard victims of sexual harassment say things like “I felt sorry for him,” or “I figured he wasn’t getting enough sex at home,” or even “I knew he couldn’t help himself.”

And finally, women convince themselves that they are the only victim of a sexual harasser or abuser. It is often only after other women step forward to say that they were abused by a perpetrator that a victim may realize that they are dealing with a serial abuser.

  • Fear of the Consequences

Fear of the repercussions is a huge obstacle women face when it comes to reporting sexual harassment or assault. The fear of losing their job, fear they won’t find another job, fear they will be failed in school, fear of being blamed, fear of being branded a victim, fear of being blackballed by people, fear of their physical safety. This is so true.

Many don’t disclose, because they fear they won’t be believed, and until very recently, that has primarily been the case. The fact that sexual misconduct is the most under-reported crime is due to a common belief that women make up these stories for attention or to get back at a man who rejected them. Victims’ accounts are often scrutinized to the point of exhaustion. Victims are often labeled opportunists, blamed for their own victimization, and punished for coming forward.

  • Low Self-Esteem

Some victims have such low self-esteem that they don’t consider what happened to them to be very serious. They don’t value or respect their own bodies or their own integrity, so if someone violates them, they downplay it. Sexual violations wound a woman’s self-esteem, self-concept, and sense of self. The more a girl or woman puts up with, the more her self-image becomes distorted. Little by little, acts of disrespect, objectification, and shaming whittle away at her self-esteem until she has little regard for herself and her feelings. There is a huge price to pay for “going along” with sexual exploitation. A woman doesn’t just give away her body; she gives away her integrity.

Even the most confident girl cannot sustain her sense of confidence if she is sexually violated. She feels so much shame that it is difficult to hold her head up high. She finds it difficult to have the motivation to continue on her path, whether it be college or a career.

  • Feelings of Hopelessness and Helplessness

Research has shown us that victims who cannot see a way out of an abusive situation soon develop a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, and this in turn contributes to them giving up and not trying to escape or seek help. Specifically, learned helplessness is a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed and considered to be one of the underlying causes of depression. A concept originally developed by the research of psychologist and Steven D. Meier, learned helplessness is a phenomenon that says when people feel like they have no control over what happens, they tend to simply give up and accept their fate.

Women feel it is useless to come forward, because they have seen the way others have been treated. They feel it is hopeless, because they won’t be believed, and their reputations will be tainted, if not ruined. Women who have already been sexually assaulted or harassed feel especially helpless, since the chances are extremely high that they did not receive the justice they so desperately needed. These fears can cause women to think there is nowhere to turn, to feel trapped and even hopeless.

  • A History of Being Sexually Violated

Women who have already been traumatized by child sexual abuse or by sexual assault as an adult are far less likely to speak out about sexual harassment at work or at school. Research shows that survivors of previous abuse and assault are at a higher risk of being sexually assaulted again. For example, research shows that 38 percent of college-aged women who have been sexually violated had first been victimized prior to college.

Those who experienced previous abuse will likely respond to overtures of sexual harassment much differently than women who have not been abused. A friend shared with me that she freezes every time a guy makes a sexual advance towards her hoping he will just walk away. This “freezing reaction” is a common one for those who were sexually abused in childhood. And as was mentioned above, those who have previously been victimized are more likely to keep quiet about the abuse, since they may have already had the experience of not being believed and not receiving justice.

  • Disbelief, Dissociated, or Drugged

Finally, sometimes women don’t report sexual harassment or assault, because at the time of the abuse they were drugged, inebriated, or dissociated. Others may have been so drunk before the assault that they doubt their memories, and as we know, some are so traumatized that they dissociated during the attack and have only vague memories. It usually takes one woman coming forward before a woman is able to trust her own memories of the experience. Unless other women come forward to make a complaint about someone, most will continue doubting themselves and assuming they will be doubted if they report.

It is understandable that women have a difficult time coming forward for a number of reasons. These women deserve our recognition about how difficult it is and our compassion for what they have been through. Women need to be encouraged to begin to push away their internalized shame with anger and to learn how to give the shame back to their abusers.

Instead of focusing so much energy on trying to figure out why victims don’t report, it would be far more productive to ask, “Why do we allow men to continue to sexually harass and assault women?” Perhaps even more important, we need to stop asking why victims wait to report and instead focus on how we can better support victims in their quest for justice and healing.