Customer Reviews

The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear from You About Sex

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Parenting has taken on a new dimension with all the technology available to kids in today's society. Traps loom at every turn, and parents need to beware of what our children are doing in school, after school, with their friends, and online. Even at playtime, do most parents really know what goes on in some of the video games our children spend endless hours with?
Written by an experienced adolescent and teenage psychologist, this book is a terrific resource that all parents should read, and this includes both mothers and fathers. In a comprehensive and easy-to-read manner, Dr. Maxwell explores the mind and behavior patterns of the typical American teenager, as well as the sources of stress, conflict, revolt and rebellion that make this age so difficult for both kids and adults alike. Nothing is sugar-coated in this graphic book, which explores everything, (yes everything) that our children are exposed to in their spectrum of life experiences. The book includes useful practical advice such as contracts we can make with our children, and specific guidelines that can help parents structure talks with their children about uncomfortable and awkward topics. Each chapter includes pullout sections of "Take it Home" tips, that make browsing the book for highlights an easy matter. Highly recommended (I should say required) reading for anyone with kids of any age today!

Like the author of this book I also found myself in a position where my kids got an introduction to sex in a very different way from how I would have wanted. This was the second book I purchased on this topic, and I think it has given me a practical and useful framework for addressing this very important topic with my kids. One of the most important point made in this book is that if we as parents are not proactive about talking to our kids about sex, other people (as individuals or through media advertising) will do the job for us...very often not in the way we would like. If we want to be the providers of information in this area, we have to take charge earlier than most of us parents would like to believe and encourage ongoing discussion on the topic.
The author addresses not only the biology aspect of sex but also the social power, sexual desire, relationship and also moral/ethical aspects of sex. The book is essentially about "connecting the dots" between this various aspects of sex in a way that allows the subject of sex to be addressed in a healthy wholesome way by parents. Other parties that may attempt to educate your children are likely to focus on a single aspect to further their own ends, not necessarily in the interest of the children. This is why the talk has to come from the parents.
She talks about some general principles of learning self control and treating others as you would like to be treated. These principles I think are applicable regardless of your religious and cultural background. However she does not push a one size fits all approach. Each chapter ends with a set of questions/activities designed to make you become more aware of where you as an individual stand on the various aspects of sex. Answering those questions or doing the activities helps you to consciously clarify what your own values and attitudes are. Then you can build your own talk to convey your values to your child.
I found this book easy to read, yet chock full of useful information as well as food for thought and discussion with other adults, as well as kids. To me it rightly emphasizes that sex is not simply the physical acts and desires but an amalgamation of physical, emotional, spiritual and ethical considerations, and that any talks we have with our kids about sex has to take into account all of these facets in order to be truly meaningful.

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.

I found this book easily readable and informational. I hope that parents find it before their children enter puberty. Most wait too long to begin "the talk", which should ideally start early and continue for many years.

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.

I had to have "the talk" with my 10 year old son because of things that one boy in particular at his elementary school had been discussing with the other 5th graders. Though I had planned to have the talk when he was 10, I had to have it earlier than I had planned once he started to ask me what "rape" "strip" "masturbation" and other terms meant and once the other kid started to describe in graphic details certain sexual acts.

This book is terrific because it stresses that you've got to talk to your kids both about both the biological aspect of sex and also the social/peer pressure aspects involving sex. The biology part of the talk I had with my son was actually easier than I thought, because he'd received so much misinformation that he welcomed knowing the facts (and just the facts) about what sex is and how it takes place. I also bought a book that had cartoon depictions of the reproductive organs, which my son and I read while we were having the talk.

The author uses a number of examples from her private practice to make parents realize that you can't avoid talking about sex with your kids because they will be exposed to it earlier than you think even if you don't let them have unsupervised internet access, screen their tv shows, etc. Unless you're raising them in a cave, someone will tell your child things (sometimes in graphic detail) and the book helped me think of multiple ways to approach the various aspects of sex that my son had been exposed to (dating, kissing ... and more). My son didn't want to have the talk, but I was armed with various phrases thanks to the book, and had thought through a lot of what-if? scenarios so the initial talk went well and both of us actually giggled a few times.

My son told me after "the talk" that he didn't want to have it, but was so glad that we did because he didn't feel awkward or embarassed anymore. And, he still asks me questions when things come up in school, so I view "the talk" (both the book and the conversation I had with my son) as a success.

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.

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.

The author obviously has spent a lot of time discussing this issue with teenage children and their parents and knows a thing or two. This is a straight forward discussion about talking to your teenage children about sex. Very enlightening and frank. DCP

If you've been putting off talking about sex with your children, this book can help get you on track.

Dr. Maxwell presents a perspective of sexuality that I found very compelling. Rather than simply talking about the biology of sex, she talks about sexual energy and desire, and how sexuality is an integral part of the human experience. It is certainly part of the media messages that our kids confront in the world -- if we don't initiate conversations then our kids are left with the presentation of sex in today's media and online.

Dr Maxwell has had extensive experience working with kids in many settings which clearly supports the advice presented in the book. Her calm confidence helped enable me to initiate some of those conversations I had been delaying.