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The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear from You About Sex | 
 enlarge | Author: Ph.d., Sharon Maxwell
Publisher: Avery
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $4.99
You Save: $9.96 (67%)
New (4) Used (5) from $4.99
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 27987
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7
Dewey Decimal Number: 649.65
ASIN: B001F0RAF2
Publication Date: April 10, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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Product Description
A groundbreaking resource to help jump start an ongoing discussion between parents and teens about sex and sexuality Internet chat rooms, boy/girl sleepovers, reality TV . . . theres more to the talk than ever before. Faced with a culture that pushes our kids to be sexy before puberty begins, how do we explain the power of sexuality in a way that promotes healthy, age-appropriate behavior?
The Talk is a breakthrough resource for parents and educators that prepares kids for a hypersexualized world and lays the foundation for ethical sexual behavior that can guide our children from elementary school through college.
Using real-life situations, Dr. Sharon Maxwell demonstrates how dramatically the world of preteen and teen sexual exploration has changed. She helps parents think through the message they want to give to their kids about sexual behavior, and how that message must evolve as their kids get older. Focusing on the importance of love and intimacy, Dr. Maxwell helps parents define their values about sex and gives concrete ways to share those values with teens.
The Talk shows parents how to:
*Set family guidelines for safe Internet use
*Address the social power that comes from looking sexy, and the personal responsibility each of us has to use that power appropriately
*Discuss the moral aspects of sexuality in ways teens will understand
*Help children recognize the difference between feelings of sexual desire and love
*Develop principles with our teens that will help them figure out when its okay to be sexual with someone and when its not
Dr. Maxwell connects the dots between reproduction, the potent power of sexiness, sexual desire, emotional intimacy, and the spiritual dimension of sexuality. Offering an innovative framework for looking at human sexuality, this book has the potential to change the national conversation on sex education.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Highly relevant, timely, and helpful..... December 5, 2008
This is 'the book' for guiding parents of pre-teens and teens in their talks with today's children regarding sex. Completely relevant and up to date in assessing the impact of internet, TV, and the - appropriately termed - 'hypersexualized world' our children are being impacted by. Very helpful are the 'take it home' sections for parents contained throughout that prompt parents through answering questions to determine their own awareness and feelings, and give parents exercises to complete which create an action plan for beginning relevant discussions with their children. Beyond a simple description of the 'birds and the bees' (which I knew my children already knew about) I had no idea how to begin my discussions with them in ways that would allow me to address my concerns while acknowledging their situations. This book provides that education for parents, and does so in a way that creates discussions with their children of extreme value and respect for both.
This book is GREAT September 17, 2008
This book is great. It is taking my inner intuitive knowledge and shining a light on it and making it clearer for me. And it is enlightening me to plenty I didn't know. It's giving me language that I can use with my kids; I'm not saying word-for-word what's in the book, but the book helps me extract what I already knew and urges me to go for it and say it out loud. So I'm doing it and it's coming out authentic because it was already mine. Thank you Sharon Maxwell, with all my heart, for a very very valuable resource for parents. I'm going to recommend it to all my friends with kids of all ages.
Fantastic Guide on Raising Teens July 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book raises our awareness about how incredibly sexualized our world has become. In this day and age, 'sex sells' is the premise of many marketing campaigns. It translates into an oversaturated, oversexed world with little value or transmission of understanding for our kids.
The book is not at all prudish, nor is it old-fashioned. Although I stumbled over her handling of certain sexual preferences, I thought the book cast an overall positive light in how to approach the subject of sex education with our kids. It's about The Talk 21st-century style. It's not like the film American Pie. In fact, it is an antidote to prevent the same scenes from playing in your own kid's world.
According to Dr. Maxwell, we should talk, but more importantly, listen. She pleads for parents to discuss sexual desire and not wait for kids to approach you. Because we've been talking about where babies come from since our kids were young enough to speak (thanks, in part, to a book we bought after my daughter's fascination with it at a friend's house), it doesn't seem like a large jump to talk about their own feelings about sexuality. But it does seem weird because the talk will eventually shift from what parents do to what kids want to do themselves.
One of the most helpful tips Dr. Maxwell gives is looking at your teenager as you would the birthing process. You birthed a baby, and now you are birthing an adult. It takes a lot longer and can be a lot messier, but the end result is equally gratifying.
The problem many parents have is where to start? Wait for an opening in the conversation, then pray your way through it? Dr. Maxwell encourages talking about it often. Help your children form opinions in line with your family's values, not with those of mass marketing campaigns.
Let the dialogue has begun. Thanks to Dr. Maxwell, we have a guide to help our children sort out their feelings as we sort out our own.
~Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and Sahm I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, lives near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children.
Marvelous resource for parents. July 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dr. Maxwell's book,The Talk, is a positive, powerful, realistic book, and a must for any family library. If you are a parent who feels bewildered about the prevalence of the message of sexuality-without-consequences in today's society, and want to teach your child the importance of positive, healthy, and delayed sexual relationships, this is your guide. Using several templates to initiate conversations with children of all ages, Dr. Maxwell takes the guesswork out of when, how, and why we must be talking with our children about sex before the media, the internet, and peers do it for us. Amazingly, Dr. Maxwell guides the reader to articulate their own goals and hopes for their child's future sexual decision making, while not neglecting the emotional, social, or biological power of sexual desire. This generation needs to hear from parents about the biology and ethics of what it means to be a sexually mature and ethical human being who respects others and oneself. Wise, humane, and practical: don't miss this book.
Unexpected Treasure June 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Not being a parent, a young person, or someone who works with kids, I didn't expect this book to be a page-turner, but it was ...! I read it in two eager sittings. It is totally engaging in both its tone and content. It is sane and inspired, honest and very, very practical. While focusing on the critical issue of sexual health and safety for young people (and people of all ages making sexual decisions), the book is also about much larger issues, ones that seem critical to our general well-being as a society these days. I knew while reading the Introduction that I would probably keep reading, and within another page or two I couldn't leave. What the author was saying was way too important ...
Admittedly, the book addresses one of my own personal bugaboos - media manipulation - but I was delighted to see that the author quickly lays a foundation for how balance and sanity can re-enter many different kinds of conversations and decisions we may be having/making these days ... In addition to excellent information about how and when to talk to kids about sex, this book offers information about becoming self-aware about conditions and situations that diminish us, and about how to make better decisions. Reading this book, I realized how very rare it is to come across anything in the media these days that helps us create a coherent picture of what is happening around us, or how to access a place where good guidelines and decisions can be formulated about sex, media exposure, Internet overstimulation and the like, and where these guidelines have enough coherent flexibility to grow with us. It was a pleasure to see "meaning" and "value" being reintroduced to the discussion, along with strategies for considering them as important components of our lives ...
On a more concrete level, the author clearly lays out the connections between all the complex topics and influences affecting young people & their parents both normally and in the hypersexualized environment we are experiencing today. Her chapters on morality/ethics were some of the most sanely-articulated and useful ones I have ever come across. And still, regardless of any wider "resonance" the author's guidelines may have within our culture, they are offered to us fully grounded in the world of "booty calls," casual impersonal sex among teens, and Internet pornography.
The author treads skillfully, and helps us navigate with her, some of the most sensitive of fine lines about differing religious teachings, parental control, and homosexuality. I was unexpectedly moved and uplifted by this book, by the author's compassion and professionalism, common sense and inspired intelligence ...
I can see this book being a relief, a guidebook, and an inspiration for parents and for any of us concerned about the health and well-being of our society.
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