I attended a lecture, an annual event sponsored by the PTA at our local high school last week. The event was open to any parent in the community and to teens or any child who the parent deemed ready to hear explicit talk. The focus was on the latest trends and statistics about drinking alcohol, drugs, sex, sexting, and cyber bulling. This was not just about high school. The ages for sex and use of marijuana and drugs has gone down to age twelve so these topics apply to middle school students as well.
I was going to take my fourteen year old to hear it, but he had to run a leadership meeting for Boy Scouts, something he could not miss. My younger son asked why I was going so I told him "to hear a lecture". He asked about what and I told him. "Mom you know all that information. You read stuff and you watch, like, one documentary a week!" I told him that while I do know some things this would tell recent statistics and maybe some new things I didn't know about as well as telling about specific things happening right in our town.
My kids are homeschooled and I'd like to think that it prevented them from being exposed to some negative things. With that said they have friends in the schools who they know through Boy Scouts, sports teams, and church. So knowing what the school kids deal with is good to know.
I will publish a series of blog posts to share what was new to me or what surprised me, and it will contain some graphic information for the purpose of educating parents.
I am dividing the posts by topic.