Written by Sheila Overton, M.D.
April 20, 2016
Before It’s Too Late: A Parent’s Guide on Teens, Sex, and Sanity meets the urgent need to proactively reach adults before their teen is in crisis. The book will educate and wake up parents who would recoil at the thought that their teen could become pregnant at the age of 14 or contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that might scar them for life.
There is a chorus of agreement that parents own primary responsibility for educating their teens about sex, yet most parents cringe at the thought. They often fear saying too little or too much, using the wrong words, or not knowing enough. Talking with teens about sex isn’t a one-time deal, something parents can do once and cross off their list. Teens aren’t adult and don’t have the same ability to absorb, retain, and synthesize information. Parents have to keep talking to them about sexual health and then talk some more. Kids who might at first, turn a deaf ear to what they hear as “blah blah blah” from parents will often stop short and listen when they understand what the consequences of teen sex can be.
The tips for these intimate conversations and practical-interactive tools are found in Before It’s Too Late and address the very real and unmet need parents have for positively guiding their kids about sex. This book teaches parents, step-by-step, how to get crucial sexual health points across, not once, but again and again. The book addresses barriers to having these conversations: teen reluctance, parental embarrassment or uncertainty, and how to overcome these obstacles. Parents receive practical and medically accurate information about teen pregnancy and STDs, birth control and abstinence. Interactive tools help parents focus on crucial teen sexual health information as well as their own values. And, they are given straight-forward tips on communicating with their teens about sex as well as ample references to community and national resources that will continue to provide guidance.
Before It’s Too Late brings home what I have learned in over 25 years “in the trenches” with teens and their parents, both in my OB/GYN practice and in reaching out through teen pregnancy and STD prevention seminars, talks, articles and interviews. Readers finish the book with less anxiety about the task of educating their teens, a renewed sense of urgency, and concrete, can-do knowledge to guide them in making healthy, wise, and respectful decisions about sexual behavior. Expert perspective and keen understanding of the issues give Before It’s Too Late the weight of medical authority. A lively style and compassionate outlook make this book not only an essential read for parents of teens, but a pleasurable one.:
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