Guest: Karen Kropf author of Raising Teens With Sexual Self-Control

My guest will be Karen Kropf, who is the author of Raising Teens With Sexual Self-Control: A Parent’s Survival Guide Karen discusses her book: Mom… Dad… Can We Talk? There is an abundance of evidence which proves the strategies of well-meaning people trying PREVENT teens from being sexually active has produced exactly the opposite result. That’s why this book was originally titled “Did You MEAN to Raise a Sexually Active Teen?” But very few people seem to be aware of the proof, or that the methods educators and parents have been using since the 1960s DON’T WORK. I’ve spoken to hundreds of parents who were completely unprepared for the anarchy of adolescence. They usually sought me out when things were on fire. Navigating an unexpected pregnancy, reeling from an abortion decision, dealing with sexual infections, or obsessive behavior. In every single case, those parents had put off the training THEY needed to guide their child through the minefield of adolescence. “Hoping for the best” is not a strategy. These weren’t bad parents. They just kept thinking they had more time. If what you were looking for was a book that would guide you through “The Talk” – the one where you sweat bullets for months, finally arrange that special weekend, Mom takes the girls, Dad takes the boys, you lay it all out, pray they don’t ask any tough questions and then hope to God you never have to discuss it again – this is NOT that book. If you were looking for a book that explains how to convince a teen to use protection consistently and correctly, this is NOT that book. That book does not exist. Teens use condoms the way they clean their rooms. Always have and always will. You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise. I wrote Raising Teens With Sexual Self-Control: A Parent’s Survival Guide because I didn’t want to watch another generation of teens fall for the same misconceptions and outright lies their parents had. It’s written so that each chapter can stand alone – in case you’re not the kind of person to read a book cover-to-cover, although I hope you will. I invite you to dive in somewhere and let me earn the right to coach you. About Karen: Karen Kropf is both the program developer and one of the founders of the organization Positively Waiting! She began exposing sex, love and relationship MYTHS in 1998, while volunteering at a local pregnancy center. In 2003, she and a team of enthusiastic adults began offering free public school presentations promoting delayed sexual activity.