<p>My birth control lecture for my son focused on the fact that in our society, a young woman cannot be forced to become a parent against her will. A young man can. </p>
<p>It’s really quite scary when you think about it.</p>
<p>Remember to eat.</p>
<p>Go to bad by 2 am</p>
<p>Watch time spent playing video games</p>
<p>JerseyMike hasn’t been back to his thread. I hope we didn’t scare him away. :o</p>
<p>Sorry.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great response to my questions!</p>
<p>Lots of super info and suggestions here, and I will surely put them to use.</p>
<p>My son is attending college on a wrestling scholarship (5 year full ride) and he’s required to attend study hall 3 nights per week, has team meetings, morning weight/cardio workouts, afternoon practice, etc., to help provide some structure to his day. His coach is a great guy, with a reputation for making sure his wrestlers get to class, get good grades and graduate. </p>
<p>He’s a good kid, never been in trouble, but as a former scholarship wrestler myself, I know there are many distractions awaiting him, which in addition to the demands of his sport, can get him sidetracked very quickly.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the advice.</p>
<p>If anyone has additional info, please share!</p>
<p>^how come you have 0 posts?</p>
<p>“My birth control lecture for my son focused on the fact that in our society, a young woman cannot be forced to become a parent against her will. A young man can.”</p>
<p>That sounds interesting and I tried to think about it but I’m not quite sure what you mean. Could you elaborate?</p>
<p>
Posts don’t count towards your total post count here in the cafe. It’s more of a social venue and the topics aren’t always related to college or even our kids. People often look to post count and associate it with how reputable the member is. We’re all just having fun here. Some threads are more meaningful then others, but that’s the general idea.</p>
<p>
A woman can terminate a pregnancy if that is her wish. No one can make that decision for her, ultimately it is up to her. The last decision her partner will make is if he has unprotected sex. If an unplanned pregnancy results and he would rather the pregnancy be terminated but the woman does not wish to, he must respect her wishes. The result may be a child that he is responsible for supporting. Thus the above statement…when an unplanned pregnancy results a woman can not be forced to become a parent, however a man can.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ok, I’ll bite. What should a young person do in the event they get arrested? And who do you call if your family doesn’t happen to already have a criminal lawyer in the rolodex?</p>
<p>@ mathmomvt - Hopefully someone else is going to speak up here but I’m going to offer that you should call the Dean of Students. The Dean of Students should be very familiar with local law enforcement and be able to give you advise, possibly even put you in touch with local attorneys. They may be used to working as an advocate for the students.</p>
<p>On a slightly different note:</p>
<p>Was discussing with DS about approaching professors about a potential research position/summer job. I could tell he was bit nervous/reluctant/reticent/shy about this prospect. I asked him how he feels when he finds someone as interested in a particular topic/issue as is he. He said that makes him excited and want to talk to them. So I pointed out that professors are in their field because they are very interested in it, and all he had to do was let them know that he shared the same excitement, and they will then want to share it with him. He had a job within a week of this conversation.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the great advice.</p>
<p>A lot of good stuff already covered.</p>
<p>I’d suggest reading Until Proven Innocent by Johnson and Taylor - I had both of my kids read it.</p>
<p>ihs76, Excellent viewpoint! I’ll be sharing that with my son.</p>
<p>We talked about many of the things other have and we talked about expectations. We told our sons that we expected them to go to class everyday and that we expected them to remember the reasons they were in college and to find balance and perspective. We told them they would learn as much in the classroom as out of the classroom but the primary purpose of college is to attend class and to learn and retain knowledge… and we asked the boys what their expectations were…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>and yes unfortunately that…but that conversation I had with the boys long before they headed off to college…</p>
<p>I don’t want to get into an argument about abortion or premarital sex in this thread, but I added one caveat to the birth control lecture…</p>
<p>“If you decide that, despite the teachings of our Faith, that you are going to have sex with someone, before having sex, discuss what will happen if pregnancy results.” </p>
<p>It is the young woman’s choice and nothing a female says in that conversation is an enforceable contract. Still, I think the conversation needs to take place. There are a lot of young men out there who assume that if a young woman gets pregnant, she will have an abortion and a lot of young women having sex who don’t think they would. Even today, there are a lot of young women having sex in “serious” relationships who assume that the father would marry them if there is a pregnancy–they see it as just getting married “earlier than planned.” Their partners sometimes don’t share their expectations. </p>
<p>Most of my friends don’t share my Faith and/or my attitudes towards pre-marital sex–that would be a strong no–but agree with me that this should be discussed before sex takes place. </p>
<p>And do remember than a condom doesn’t always prevent herpes. An amazing number of college kids don’t realize that.</p>
<p>Tell your kid not to slide down bannisters in the buildings. I heard of two kids at college who tried it in the last 5 years and ended up badly injured.</p>
<p>All of the responses here are great and right on but I especially like the one about a civilized male does not let a female friend walk home in the dark. My D has some really good male friends who watch out for her and escort her back to her dorm at night from classes or practice rooms (she is music major). They have even told her to call them anytime of the day or night if she is not comfortable and they will come and meet her wherever she is to walk her to the dorm. They watch out for each other. She has done that once at 2 am and 2 of them came within minutes to walk with her. She knows she can call campus police but in this case felt more comfortable calling her friends. She didn’t know why but that night she just had the creeps and it would have been hard to explain that to the police. It sure makes us feel good to know she has friends like this.
The one though that I think everyone missed is TO HAVE FUN (not illegal or stupid fun), enjoy the time, make good friends, grow as a person and know that as parents we will be there for you no matter what.</p>
<p>buy a cute box of condoms, does not matter if he is sexually active- casually hand it to him - (ALSO DAUGHTERS OUT THERE) say- ‘we have protected you all your life from diseases- this is one more way to help protect you’- use them and give them to your friends.</p>
<p>Don’t keep all of your cash, your drivers license, your ATM card, and your credit card in your wallet–especially if you haven’t gotten around to opening up a local bank account yet. (Yes, this lesson was learned the hard way when kid lost his wallet. Good thing he was on a meal plan.)</p>
<p>Just make sure he has fully absorbed the Holy Quadrangle:</p>
<p>Wallet
Glasses
Cell Phone
Keys</p>
<p>Our freshman son lost one or all or several of the Holy Quadrangle pretty much throughout freshman year.</p>