On the way to school, your 13- year- old daughter tunes into her favorite pop station where loud, sexually charged lyrics rattle you out of your morning daze. As she starts to sing along, you shoot her a disapproving glare, quickly change the station, and start discussing her afterschool schedule.

 Sound familiar? As parents, we know it’s important to teach our children about real life, but when it comes to talking about sex and sexuality, many of us tend to be indirectly or even blatantly evasive. Clearly, most parents don’t mean to cause harm by dodging “sex talks,” but it’s also clear that the sexuality education and values provided by pop culture are failing our children.

The media is great for forcing some dreaded but vital discussions—perhaps even in your own home. There are plenty of rauncy topics landing in your living room thanks to cable TV. But even the more "normal" topics of teen pregnancy, sex education, and contraception are getting a lot of air time lately. It’s understandable if you feel unprepared to jump into conversations about sexual desire, oral sex, or condoms—like every other difficult task, it’s an acquired skill. Fortunately, there are some tricks to help you master the task.

Get started with a book or popular media. If you struggle to find the right opening lines, try giving her a book or article on the topic (read it first!) and let it ease you into a dialogue. Most girls will roll their eyes upon being handed any sort of book on sex, but they’re quite likely to devour it when you’re not looking—especially if it includes age- appropriate information and advice. They want the information but often turn to unreliable sources for the answers. As you encourage her to read it, you might even tell her, “This book has a lot of details and information in it that I sometimes don’t know how to bring up, but I think it’s important that you know it.” This sets the stage for a follow-up dialogue (shameless plug: our books are a great place to start!)

Another conversation starter is to let her media use guide you. Watch her favorite show, listen to her fave song lyrics, and scan her magazines or paperbacks. Then use what you see and hear to guide a discussion—not start an argument or editorialize on the downfall of youth culture. Ask her what she thinks about specific issues. Use open-ended questions to get her take on behaviors and general trends among the kids at her school (avoid “yes/no” questions). If you only ask about herself or her friends, she may shut down.

Let her know she’ll get real information from you. “Is oral sex really sex?” “Do you think it’s wrong to have sex before marriage?” “How far is ok?” “How does someone know if they’re gay?” Even though her questions may leave you cringing inside and blushing on the outside, you can always start your answer by gathering more information. You can reply: “Well, tell me what you know about that (or tell me what you think), and I’ll fill in what I know.” When she starts talking and you are “just listening,” don’t freak out over anything she tells you—at least not in front of her. If you seem upset, it sends the message that you aren’t capable of handling the issues in her life. That makes her less likely to come to you with problems in the future.

Don’t worry that you’re giving her too much information. It’s better to be proactive in anticipating what’s next in her world, rather then explaining things in reaction to some recent crisis. It is well established that age-appropriate sexuality education does not cause sexual experimentation nor premature sexual behaviors. Once a girl approaches middle school (where sexual experimentation is common), there is no sexuality topic that should be off limits.

Encourage her solutions, and make your guidance clear. Engage your daughter in discussions about the tough issues before she faces them directly. Help her think through different scenarios and decide how she would handle the situation personally. It will give her more time to “process” the information intellectually and emotionally and strategize within the context of her own values and goals. Giving it some forethought means she will be less likely to be caught “off guard” or “undecided” in a challenging situation.

It’s crucial that you give her your well-thought-out opinions based on your values, expectations, and experiences. And make it clear that you encourage further discussions. You can say: “This is a complicated topic. You’ll probably want to think about it, and your opinion might even change over time. I’m here whenever you want to talk about again.”

Build her decision-making skills. As your daughter grows older, it’s increasingly important that you—and she—stay grounded in reality. It’s hard for parents and girls as well to absorb the fact that one in three girls—including “nice” girls—has had either oral sex or sexual intercourse by age 15, and that over 40% of graduating high school seniors have had sex. Acknowledging these facts adds to the context that informs her smart decisions.

All adolescents need guidance in establishing their personal values, but in the end, choices about sexual and other risk taking behaviors are theirs to make. Remembering this may help motivate you to jump into those tough discussions. Engage your daughter in mature conversations; then help her make personal decisions after considering options and consequences. Together you’ll be ensuring that she forms healthy, strong strategies that keep her self-assured about her emerging sexuality.

Getting age-appropriate, comprehensive sex ed into our educational system in the U.S.is not going to happen overnight – and maybe not even very soon. But there’s oneresource that is providing our children with ample sex-ed: the media. Unfortunately, the vast majority of it is not age-appropriate, and it’s not even responsible. Can you believe that 70% of the programs that our children and teens are watching contain some sort of sexual content? That’s a lot of casual sex and sex without consequences.

If you have a teen approaching adulthood, you might think the Girlology blog is too youth oriented, and that ship has sailed. Well, pull her back into port, because post-sixteen is not too late for meaningful conversation.  In fact, we want to stress to parents, educators, coaches and any adults that care about young people that it’s never too late to talk. In fact, talking with your near-adult or young-adult children is even more important because relationships take on new depth, and sexuality becomes a more significant part of relationships.

All adolescents need guidance in establishing their personal values, but in the end, choices about sexual and other risk taking behaviors are theirs to make. You won't be there when your child says "yes" or "no" to sexual behaviors.

Remembering this may help motivate you to jump into those tough discussions. Engage your daughter in mature conversations. Then, help her make personal decisions after considering options and consequences. As awkward as these dialogues may be, they are critical in today’s culture where messages about sexuality can be so unhealthy, confusing and just plain wrong.  Make sure your child has correct information and knows she can come to you with questions.  It's been proven over and over: talking about it won't make her go out and do it; instead, it makes her think about it and prepares her for making better choices.

We can’t address touch and sexual desire without talking about the M word. Although most parents will cringe (or even stop reading right here!) at the thought of discussing masturbation with their child, most children have already discovered it to some degree.

First, take a deep breath. We realize that talking about your daughter’s growing sexual desire is not easy, but we commend you for even considering it.

By age 13 or 14, girls may seek touch from females and males in their peer group. By 14 or 15, many girls find older boys more mature than the boys in their peer group, and look to the older ones for attention and relationships. Sexual experimentation is very common in the early to mid teen years. Most early experimentation involves kissing and intimate touching, but teens today move quickly, and 25% have had oral sex or sexual intercourse by age 15. It is frighteningly easy for teen girls to give and receive touch that may not be healthy or fulfilling, particularly if there is a touch hungry boy in her life.

So, whether or not your daughter has a boyfriend by adolescence, it’s time to help her set personal boundaries and limits on intimate touch. You can help your daughter understand that sexual activity is not a healthy way to nourish her touch hunger and that even sexual desire is not fulfilled in a satisfying way unless there is a relationship that builds emotional intimacy before physical intimacy.

Dr. Melisa Holmes shares Girlology advice on handling questions from your child that are a bit too personal. Learn the balance between over-sharing and providing helpful, relevant personal stories.

At first, it may seem like a no win situation. You’ve completely lost your cool factor in your teen daughter’s eyes, particularly when it comes to public displays of affection. Your hand is no longer needed to cross the street and your proud parent embrace is an unwelcome gesture after the school play. Don’t let the rebuff stop you! It’s important for parents to continue to feed their daughter’s touch hunger. Surely, there’s plenty of private time to find good opportunities. At home, when her friends aren’t around, keep giving her big bear hugs or little “I love you” hugs, even though she may protest. Give her a back scratch or shoulder massage. Hang out at her bedside and rub her feet. Invest in the flow of touch as you would verbal communication.

While you’re busy in the present, don’t forget the past. Keep at the forefront of your mind the amount of touch your daughter sought as a child and continue to provide a similar amount or more to her as an adolescent. Recognize that most people enjoy affectionate touch to some degree, but some more than others. Even if your daughter is in the “less touchy” category, she will still appreciate and feel nourished by brief episodes of affectionate touch. Something that once came naturally to you as the parent, an instinctive impulse, must now be delivered in more thoughtful and steady doses.

Touch alternatives

On the flip side of calculated affection, many girls’ touch hunger can be fulfilled in wonderfully innocent and rewarding ways. Having a dog, horse, guinea pig or other pet to cuddle and care for can provide rewarding touch within an emotional connection. Caring for a pet or volunteering with animals in some way can also model important aspects of healthy relationships such as responsibility, affection, trust and loyalty. Babysitting can similarly fill your daughters touch tank and teach important relationship qualities. Using these types of examples, you can help your daughter see the importance of establishing trust before touching and of building trust through non-threatening touch. These are important lessons that will help her as she begins to explore romantic relationships.

Where do her peers come in?

As she begins to spend more time with her friends, she will naturally seek touch from them. Preteen girls tend to give and receive friendly and playful touch from their female friends. They can feel nourished by fixing each other’s hair, giving manicures, or even exercising together. At this age, however, it is not unusual for sexual exploration (homosexual or heterosexual) to occur if they are left unsupervised, but it is usually related to their growing curiosity about bodily changes. Girls at this age are particularly interested in how their body changes look compared to their friends. If you find your daughter involved in such exploration, it’s a good time to provide some images of normal bodily changes and to discuss the importance of privacy and limit setting.

So, how are we doing so far? Odds are that up until now you’ve probably been on board and in sync with our conversation about touch hunger. Sure, you might have winced a little here and there, but for the most part you’re probably saying, “I can do that.” Not so fast. Remember the boy we chatted about in the first blog, his arm looped around your daughter’s waist, her hands affectionately wrapped around his? Well, don’t look now, but he’s sitting in your living room. And in one form or another, he’s here to stay. Check back tomorrow for more.

Denial seems like a quick fix for the aging child, but it only works for so long. No matter how hard we wish away the teen years, and the angst that comes with them, it’s going to happen. And let’s be honest, most parents don’t really want to know that their little girl is having big girl desires. In turn, most adolescent girls don’t necessarily recognize sexual energy and desire as such, but it does affect the way they think and behave. Sometimes these new feelings show up as interest in a boy, new attention to clothes and make up, or a heightened focus on body image. Sometimes it surfaces as her first crush or dreams of her first kiss. In other instances, it leads to sexual experimentation without an understanding of the emotional and physical consequences of sexual activity.

Starting with the day your baby was born, gentle contact and instinctive gestures fulfilled the need for physical affection. But have you ever wondered what becomes of that "touch hunger" when your daughter turns 11 or 15 or 18? Certainly, the need to be touched doesn’t dissipate with age—in fact, it only increases. So who or what replaces that urge as time moves forward, situations change, and different opportunities to satisfy touch hunger come her way? Throughout this series of articles, we’ll explore touch hunger, offering insights and solutions to a tricky topic that every parent and teen encounters.

Let’s start from the middle, with that 15-year old and the heart stopping “whoa” that jerks to the surface the first time you see your daughter lean comfortably into a boy, his arms looped around her waist while her hands wrap tightly around his. As uncomfortable as it is for you, it’s couldn’t be more natural for them. For most parents, that scene leads to automatic shift into protective mode, brainstorming for ways to stop it. But before you ship her off to boarding school or ban the boy from your front porch, remember that it’s also only natural for your daughter to be hungry for affectionate touch.