As both a Health Educator and a parent of school aged children myself, I often find myself getting questions or in conversation with friends, family and fellow parents about what we teach, how we answer certain questions, why we talk about certain topics in our programs and if they are age appropriate. One of these …
Introduction In life we all have decisions to make. Statistics say that we make about 35,000 decisions a day. Most of those 35,000 are very small choices that we make every day like, brushing our teeth, what we wear, to get on the freeway or take surface streets, and what we eat.The decisions are more …
Understanding of adolescent decision making has moved beyond simple “age differences in risk perception and reasoning” to include relevant social and emotional factors that directly inform when and how adolescents make decisions about everything from substance use to condom use.[i] Adolescence is defined as the period between which “physiologically normal puberty” initiates and adulthood begins.[ii] Though …
Continue reading Just Because They Can, Doesn’t Mean They Do
Having set the scene at the start of the semester, explained the skills and topics we will cover together and the rationale behind teaching the way that I do, I provide my students with an opportunity to shape our curriculum. Now that you know the why and what we will cover in class this semester, …
As we are amid this current COVID-19 pandemic, the nation is asking people to change their behavior. It sounds simple, but behavior change is difficult. I recently read an article in the American Journal of Health Education by Robert Bensley who talks about this concept. Changing behavior shouldn’t be difficult because we now know the …
Nancy Reagan's 1982 "Just Say No' campaign reached far and wide, even landing on my radar as a 12 year old (I'll let you do the math). However, despite its catchphrase and good intentions, the evidence suggests that telling students to 'just say no' is ineffective and, coupled with scare tactics about the dangers of …
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