If you were to ask most millennials or Gen Xers if their parents sat them down to talk to them about dating and sex, their answer would be no. Even if their response is yes, the conversation may have gone something like, “Don’t get a girl pregnant,” or “If you lay down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas.” These are true stories from many of our friends. In fact, a friend of Axis shared that the only instruction her parents gave her about dating was that she couldn’t date until she was sixteen. She turned sixteen, got her license to drive and date. There was no conversation about character, attraction, boundaries, or appropriate and inappropriate touch. “There were more conversations on how to drive than how to date,” she said.

Many parents of these generations outsourced the conversation about dating and sex, entrusting it to sex education teachers, youth group leaders, and television shows like Family Matters, Step by Step, and 90210. Though this trend has significantly diminished, as current parents have experienced the ill effects of their parents not having “the sex talk” with them, The New York Post reports that over twenty percent of parents still do not plan to talk to their kids about sex. Read More

One of the ongoing challenges of helping children with autism thrive is understanding behaviors that can seem baffling. When they’re toddlers, they’re easily misdiagnosed if they don’t fit the stereotypes of kids on the spectrum — especially girls. Older kids can also struggle to have their needs met by even the most supportive parents and teachers when they aren’t able to communicate clearly. Read More

The advice in this piece is so basic, it’s hard to believe that anyone would really need it. What’s more revealing here are the statistics: 81 percent of recent college grads surveyed said that they wish they learned more life skills during their education. In another survey, Gen Z was the most likely demographic to not know how much they spent in the last month. Figuring out the skills your children are going to need if they are to live independently and contribute to a household of their own sets them up for early success, but it takes intentional conversation to figure out those knowledge gaps and address them. Your best bet is probably to ask teens to make a list of skills they want to learn and things they are nervous about doing on their own. Read More

Nearly three out of every four teenagers have viewed pornography at some point in their lives, with more than half first seeing sexually explicit material by age 13, according to a new study. 

Common Sense Media, which describes itself as "the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century," released a report titled "Teens and Pornography."

The report is based on responses to an online survey of 1,358 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17. The survey was conducted by Benenson Strategy Group from Sep. 12–21, 2022. Most of those surveyed (54%) said they had first seen pornography online at age 13 or younger.

Fifteen percent reported first viewing pornography online at age 10 or younger, while 73% of teens overall admitted to viewing porn at some point during their teenage years. Read More

Lost? Confused? Unable to understand your teens? Don’t worry; you’re in good company. Keeping up with latest teen slang terms is nearly impossible. New words are constantly being introduced, thanks to the influence of music, the Internet, apps, and celebrities (not to mention regional vernacular!). You may feel overwhelmed and lost when listening to your children/ grandchildren speaking, and it’ll only get worse when reading social media posts and hashtags. Use this guide as a reference for what’s widely popular right now in order to translate what teens are saying. Read More

Join the Axis team in the One Conversation Podcast as they share expert interviews that will help take your conversations with your kids to the next level. This informational, interview-style podcast will provide fuel for your parenting journey as we tackle the toughest topics facing you and your kids.

Americans spent 38 percent less time with friends and family members this Thanksgiving than they did in years past, a stark example that the amount of hours we spend with other people has plummeted. The so-called “loneliness epidemic” is actually not so new. But God didn’t want Adam to be alone and He made us for community. Read More

The youth of America are abusing booze less and weed more, according to a new study that looked at two decades of data on teens and school-aged children who wound up seeking medical care after taking various substances.

Adolescent cannabis abuse has increased by a whopping 245 percent in the US since 2000, the new research finds, with a particularly dramatic rise occurring in just the past few years.

At the same time, rates of alcohol abuse have declined among those aged between 6 and 18 years. Back in 2000, alcohol was in the top spot on the rather worrying list compiled from a US national poisons database, which records information on calls to poison helplines. Now, it sits in third place... Read More

Is sex before marriage a sin? At some point, every youth worker hears a version of that question. Teens and young adults often struggle with issues of mental and physical purity. And when they sin by having premarital sex, they need help dealing with heartbreak and forgiveness.

Read on to consider how you’ll answer kids who ask, “Is sex before marriage a sin?” Plus, ponder how you’ll respond to someone who’s heartbroken after having premarital sex. Read More

During the coronavirus pandemic, pediatric endocrinologists saw a new surge of referrals for girls with early puberty. Recent retrospective studies from Germany and Turkey show that the number of these referrals doubled or even tripled during the lockdown periods of 2020 (this at a time when many families may have been avoiding non-emergency doctor’s visits for fear of covid-19). A paper published in August in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics, which analyzed data from South Korea’s national statistics portal, found that the number of children diagnosed with precocious puberty almost doubled between 2016 and 2021, with a sharp post-2020 spike. The rise in early puberty “is a phenomenon that is occurring all over the world,” Frank M. Biro, the former director of the adolescent-medicine division at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, told me. (Although there has also been a rise among boys, girls experiencing early puberty still vastly outnumber them.)

in the midst of what is increasingly understood to be a post-covid youth mental-health crisis, the startling new uptick in early puberty is troubling to some physicians and parents. But, because the spike appears to have been triggered within a compressed, well-defined timeframe, it also offers rich terrain for better understanding the condition’s causes and effects. It also provides a chance to rethink puberty: to see it not as a gateway into adulthood but as another stage of childhood—one that is highly variable from kid to kid and need not be cause for alarm.

“We are in a great natural experiment at the moment, and we might not know the results of it for another ten years or more,” Louise Greenspan, a pediatric endocrinologist at Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco, said. “I do wonder if this is going to be a cohort of kids whose puberty was more rapid because they were in a critical window of susceptibility during a time of great social upheaval.” Read More