Lux AlptraumHonestly shocking to me as both a one time high school sex educator and a one time teen how many of you don’t believe that teens deserve privacy
Teens are not children! They’re simply not! Are they adults? Nope! But they’re in an in between development stage and they deserve an age appropriate amount of privacy and autonomy in order to practice our being adults.
“But what if they fuck up?” Yeah I mean that’s how people learn shit.
This is also why I hate when people feel like they have to infantilize teens in order to argue that when teens date adults there’s a higher likelihood of abuse. It’s not because teens are children! It’s because they’re *not fully developed adults*! There’s a difference.
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️@luxalptraum My first job out of college was working with teens, and I also fostered a couple when I was still married living in California.
They're really their own thing.. They can reason basically like adults, they can make and execute long term plans/goals... but they are hilariously naive and open and vulnerable, and even incredibly smart ones just happen not to know a lot of very basic things because they haven't lived long enough to learn them.
Roadskater, Ph.D.@e_urq @luxalptraum "but they are hilariously naive and open and vulnerable". This explains the various people I knew in college (esp. the first year or two) who changed their religious alignment, because the churches were actively recruiting on or very near campus.
Wyl McCully@luxalptraum it seems like the problem is our binary approach to maturity. 17 and 364 days: young, stupid child; but overnight, the grownup fairy comes down and at 18 you are magically a grown, intelligent adult. There is no room in our laws for something in-between.
Tom Bellin 
@luxalptraum if they fuck up then I hope you haven't done something to screw up their natural trust in their parents (like, say, spying on them) so that they come to you to help them instead of someone else.
luvadergolder@tob @luxalptraum like my parents. I stopped telling them anything and stopped journaling/leaving personal documents at home at 14. Then at 18 went NC for 13 years.
@tob @luxalptraum luckily I didn’t screw up bad enough I needed their help.
Mikey Brenndorfer XVX@luxalptraum 100% - I feel half my job is providing a safe place for young people to fuck up so they can learn on the way, and helping their parents do the same.
Bluedotmo@luxalptraum Parent of two teens. The balance is letting them fuck up without killing themselves or fucking up their entire future.
@bluedotmo @luxalptraum Just try to keep them away from heavy machinery (i.e., the car) and OMG, these days, fentanyl.
Illiath The Fae@luxalptraum I still find it weird that many people don't get that you have to fail at something to learn something. The important point for good teaching is to make sure your students don't fail in a manner that can actually hurt them. (Note: I said "good teaching", not "teachers", if you don't believe you're teaching things to your kids, please help them get to a real parent!)
Collin Beyer@luxalptraum fucking up could mean catching mono and regretting wasting your vcard. Maybe if parenting was better kids wouldn't rush into zero sum relationships that have a shelflife of a month or so. We need to teach our kids the difference between a real life partner and one night stands. If parents communication was better kids wouldnt ruin their love life. If they truly want a one night stand then thats fine too but they need to be given condoms and good advice. Making sex illegal encourages
Ash Rose@haplessidiot @luxalptraum Rushing into bad relationships is part of being a teen though, because you have all these feelings and you don’t know the red flags yet. Parenting is about teaching good emotional intelligence so they pick someone better next time
Also “v-cards” aren’t real and no one would care if society didn’t fetishize virginity so much. Mono or STIs are a bigger danger but proper sex education that doesn’t fetishize abstinence and virginity is the only way to prevent that