children

The Scarleteen Safety Plan

If you're in an abusive relationship, to make abuse stop you've got to get away and stay away. Here's help to do that safely, and to be as safe as you can before leaving.

What's An Abortion, Anyway? An Interview with Children's Book Author Carly Manes

Abortion can be hard for many adults to understand and process, let alone for kids. As with so many potentially major life events, they are often left in the dark without any comment or explanation as if nothing happened, or receive a rigid lecture from an authority figure imposing only their singular point of view. The book "What’s an Abortion, Anyway?" proposes a new, more fluid and non-judgmental way to explain this event to the small ones.

Birds and bees and kids

Workshops, books, videos and other resources to help parents and sex ed professionals do an excellent job with kids, teens and sexuality.

I'm 14 and Want a Baby. Is That Weird or Slutty?

kenzieayana
asks:
I'm 14 years old, a very responsible one, at that. I've gotten in trouble with having sex in the past and now I'm thinking about having a baby. I understand that I'm too young but I know how to take care of one. I've been taking care of kids just about my whole life. But I'm just wondering, is it weird or slutty to know that I want a baby? I need help really bad....

What Is Healthy Sexual Development?

Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy.

At a recent conference I was part of in London, Alan McKee presented Healthy sexual development: a multidisciplinary framework for research. What McKee and his colleagues determined to be the core parts of healthy sexual development had me jumping up and down in my seat with joy (literally: I may have disturbed my fellow attendees with my bouncing). It summed up the things we try to support, encourage and inform our users with and keep core at Scarleteen so well, and so much of what I think -- after many years of thinking hard about and working with these issues, and being fully and broadly immersed in them with a very diverse population -- truly is central to healthy sexual development.

I'm delighted to have permission to excerpt and reprint this framework here.

Birthmotherhood

When I gave birth, options were discussed with me regarding what to do about the baby. For me, there seemed no choice but adoption. I was now 17. The thought of raising a child was an impossibility. I wanted to finish high school. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to hang out with my friends. I just wanted to continue to be a teenager.

I'm 14, and I really want a baby!

Trinity
asks:
I'm 14, and I really want a baby. I know how to care for them because I live with my niece and sleep in the same room with her. Whenever she cries, I usually wake up and help my sister. I'm very good with babies. I already have 10,000 dollars in the bank just for me that I could use just for the baby, and it is still growing. I am a virgin so this is not just because I want sex. I'm very mature....