When I was in middle school, I would ask my mom if I could watch certain TV shows other kids were watching: FRIENDS, Scrubs, and so on. She said sure (she’s pretty chill about stuff like that), but she told me there were a lot of jokes I wouldn’t get. She was right. I didn’t understand why the laugh track played when Ross forcibly wouldn’t let his toddler son play with a … [Read more...]
How One Adult With SPD Wants to Explain This Condition to Your Sensory Child
This article first appeared on the author’s blog, Coming to My Senses, and is reprinted with permission. As a delayed-diagnosis sensory adult with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), one of my greatest pleasures is helping newly diagnosed children with the same condition, whether this means championing their parents or explaining sensory issues from the inside. We SPD adults … [Read more...]
4 Ridiculous Questions People Asked Me When My 11 Year-Old Came Out as Gay
When my son was 11, he came out to me and my husband as gay. Or as he initially put it, “I think I am finally ready to realize something about myself.” (He’s smart and hilarious). My husband and I are both queer (more on that later), so he knew we wouldn't have a negative reaction. We did go out to dinner to celebrate his “realization," but it was largely a non-event. I'm … [Read more...]
7 Things I Teach My Kids About Consent, Sexual Harassment, and Assault
During a crowded bus journey, my daughter's shrill four-year-old voice piped up clearly and succinctly above the hum of the ongoing conversation: "I want to have sex with [insert classmate here]." A silence, not unlike the one pervading the moment before the conductor raises his baton, fell in anticipation of my reply. And on behalf of all the sex-positive parents, I swallowed … [Read more...]
7 Things Not to Say to a Child Wrestling With Their Sexuality
As a young person, I didn’t have any queer adult mentors to teach me about the positivity of exploring my sexual orientation, not to mention my gender identity. Most of what I learned about being LGBTIQ came from '90s mainstream media and my Gay Straight Alliance in high school. After high school, a couple of my friends eventually came out as gay. I listened and learned from … [Read more...]
How I Navigate Talking to Kids About My Gender as a Trans Parent and Educator
Children are a distinct, purposeful focus in my life. I'm the parent of a brilliant six-year-old and have many close friends with delightful kids as well. I work as a substitute para-educator, a job that sends me to a plethora of classrooms, K-12, throughout my city. I'm also a transgender woman. People often connect children with trans issues, but outside the occasional … [Read more...]
10 Ways to Raise Radically Sex-Positive Kids
One of my key jobs as a parent is to raise kids who love themselves and their sexuality. My own childhood was filled with silences and horrible caveats about sex. My mother told me repeatedly that she would ‘snap my spine’ if I had sex outside of monogamous marriage. And that sex ‘was not all that it what was cracked up to be.’ The only other ‘education’ I … [Read more...]
3 Problems With Talking to White Kids About Trump
Since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, there have been tons of articles about talking to your kids about a Donald Trump presidency. As parents this is a hard thing to talk about – I get it. I was originally going to write one of these articles myself, but anxiety and other things have kept me unable to write anything until today. But as I read through … [Read more...]
6 Ways NOT to Nurture Neurodivergent Kids
Neurodivergence is something we all are learning and understanding more about all the time – both those of us who are neurodivergent ourselves, and the parents, teachers, caregivers, and advocates who (hopefully) are working to support and help us. Because the terminology and the understanding of how we tick (and in my case, tic) are always changing, I get that it can be hard … [Read more...]
10 Ways to Support Sex-Positive Kids
One of my key jobs as a parent is to raise kids who love themselves and their sexuality. My own childhood was filled with silences and horrible caveats about sex. My mother told me repeatedly that she would ‘snap my spine’ if I had sex outside of monogamous marriage. And that sex ‘was not all that it what was cracked up to be.’ (A lot of violent cracking … [Read more...]
