Consider the Cost: How to Teach Your Teen Freedom is Never Free. Especially When It Comes to Sex
Happy 4th of July!
Any American like myself, celebrating “Independence Day,” should know our “independence” has and always will come with a price.
Soldiers sacrifice their lives for us to have our freedom. So, freedom is never truly FREE!
The Lingering Costs of Sexual “Freedom”
During the 1960’s there was another “freedom movement” called the Sexual Revolution. At the time there were only two sexually transmitted infections that we knew about, gonorrhea and syphilis. Today, there are 25+ known STIs/STDs. This generation is paying the price for all of the sexual freedom that was ushered in during the 1960’s.
I share the above in the classroom before I begin to speak with the students about the cost they may have to pay for the sexual decisions they make during their teen years.
A few months ago, I received the following email through my website:
I don’t know why I’m writing you. I am a 40-year-old woman who has been carrying a secret for 20 plus years. I discovered I had herpes a few weeks after going to college. I was an 18-year-old college freshman lying on a table in the infirmary being told I had genital herpes…No one tells you how to live with the consequences of your decisions. I wanted to have a husband and children. No one ever told me that my choices at 18 would still haunt me at 40.
I’m sure when this young lady was exercising her sexual freedom during her teen years, she had no idea of the true price that she would have to pay because of that choice.
The Price Teens Pay for “Freedom”
The obvious choice that comes to mind when we think of teens having to pay a price for something is sex. The resulting cost being pregnancies, STDs or emotional consequences.
But, there’s another choice being made by teens that we’ve just begun to see the price that will be paid for it, and that’s pornography.
Warren Buffet is quoted as saying, “The chains of habits are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
The price for pornography? Addiction – to both pornography and sex. And it’s not just boys paying the price, but teen girls as well as I discuss in further detail here.
That’s not the kind of “freedom” you want for your daughter!
Help your Daughter Experience True Freedom
As I’ve shared before, my philosophy in teaching Sex-Ed to teens, is to teach them towards desired results, instead of away from negative consequences.
My students recognize this as “Pay Now. Play Later!”
They understand the price for choosing to abstain from sex (pay now) is FREEDOM (play later).
Freedom to focus on goals without unnecessary distractions. Freedom to develop and nurture gifts and talents. Freedom even to get to know a young man and figure out whether he’s a Player, Good Guy or Best Guy like I share throughout my book, 7 Secrets Guys Will Never Tell You: A Teen Girl's Guide on Love, Sex, and Relationships.
Certainly pregnancies, STDs/STIs, emotional consequences and/or addiction are prices no mom would want her daughter to pay.
So, help your daughter experience true freedom by showing her how abstinence may cost her discipline, but it also pays dividends. And she’s worth it!
