Reproductive Health Resources
Many times our kids come to us with questions we cannot answer, especially when it comes to reproductive health. It happens to me all the time. My oldest, Ella wanted to know exactly how the stomach works. We talk a lot about food as fuel and how important it is to eat well. Well, I had a hard time explaining everything to her so we googled it. It was still way over her head (and frankly, a little over mine!) but we talked about the basics. When it comes to reproductive health, there are so many topics and very few of us have been fully educated about those topics. When I was a counselor, I frequently had questions from my students that I had to do some extra research on to give them a proper answer. It’s ok not to have an answer to everything. It’s ok to say to them, I need to look this up and get back to you. But always get back to them. If they are coming to you with a question, they want to hear from you. Please don’t just send them to google or to another resource. When it comes to reproductive health questions, it can be difficult to know which the best and more reliable resource are. Therefore, I’m listing a few that I really like.
Reproductive Health Resources for Parents
- Advocates for Youth – Education, policy and advocacy work for reproductive health rights and knowledge.
- American Sexual Health Association (ASHA) – great resource for parents and communities on all aspects of sexual and reproductive health.
- Answer from Rutgers University – sexual and reproduction health education resources and information. I attended one of their educator trainings and it was such an amazing experience.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – the CDC offers facts around reproductive health. This specific section of CDC is geared toward parents that want to help their teens make healthy sexual choices.
- Guttmacher Institute – great resource for research on reproductive health. I used this resource a ton in my graduate school work.
- Kids Health from Nemours –vast resource for all aspects of kid’s health. Different sections geared towards parents, kids, and educators.
- Look Both Ways – local reproductive health education for educators and parents. (I’m on the board of directors of this organization).
- Planned Parenthood –No matter what your beliefs are about Planned Parenthood, they really do have so many great resources to educate individuals in order to empower them to take control of their own sexual health. This specific page is for parents.
- Reprotopia – reproductive health information for all ages, or as they say “from K to gray.”
- Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)– I used this resource a lot in my graduate studies. So much useful information that comes from sound research.
Like I said before, please do not use these resources as replacements for conversations. Instead use them as a compliment to your conversations. These are intended to give you the information you need to talk with your kids.
And remembers google is a great resource but google can lead you wrong as well. If you are googling a question, be very careful about what you google in front of your kid. You don’t want to expose them to something that they are not ready for or that is inaccurate. For those of you with kids that are old enough to work online by themselves, be very watchful of what they are googling.
Why its Important to Have a Plan
A quick story, I had a sixth grader that came to me very traumatized. She had heard the word “porn” at school but didn’t know what it was so she googled it. As you can imagine, she saw things she was not ready to see and was really freaked out by it. I had to talk to her through it all. Thank goodness she felt comfortable coming to talk with me. Imagine if she had no one to talk to and how impactful that one google could have been on her outlook of sex. Eventually, your child may ask you an uncomfortable or hard question, so hopefully this blog will help provide some answers.
