However hip you think you are as a parent, your kids are growing up in a sexual environment and culture far removed from the one you may have experienced at when you were their age. Like it or not, the information age affects every part of life, and that especially includes teen sexuality. With unprecedented access to information, sexual and otherwise, and the light-speed personal networking of the web and their smart phones, our kids are growing up faster than during any period in history. To address the teen sexuality aspect of this cultural revolution, Dave Beck and Fran Spokane present a safe, caring and meaningful discussion of sexual education that uses actual questions from middle schoolers. This self-help guide is the perfect companion for students, parents, educators, and administrators alike. Fostering a frank, open discussion with sensitivity and humor, it presents an impassioned plea to defeat self-deception and arm our children with real, in-depth, fact/science-based answers -- an approach that has proven to delay sexual activity, while reducing the incidence of STD's, teen pregnancy and yes, even enhance abstinence. "They Asked You What?!" can make "the sex talk" rewarding, humorous and life changing.
About the Author: Dave Beck was born in 1950 in Long Beach, California, where he still lives. He describes himself as a classic Baby Boomer: child of the 50's, grew up in the 60's, did some scary stuff in the 70's, then got married and had two daughters in the 80's. He has a journalism BA, and an Engineering BS from California State University, Long Beach. His career spans working at a local newspaper, then for some years in my family's sailboat hardware manufacturing business, then nearly 20 years in the aerospace materials industry. Making "the best career move of my life," by getting into teaching when aerospace contracted sharply in the early '90s, he picked up his first teaching credential at Cal State Dominguez and a Master's degree in school administration from Pepperdine. He's been married to the same amazing woman, Frannie Spokane, since 1977. She is a practicing speech pathologist, and she, "taught me almost everything I know about how young people's brains work and develop," information that is unconscionably rare in many teaching curriculums across the country. That their two beautiful grown daughters, Natasha and Nicole, turned out to be the amazing young women they are is largely due to her effort and wisdom. Fran is a Pittsburgh native, transplanted to southern California in her early 20's. She grew up in a small Pittsburgh neighborhood, enjoying a rich education by way of advanced educational programs that used to be the norm in most school districts. She was a straight A student, always hard working. She was a creative force throughout her school years, singing, writing plays, performing in local theatre, and dreaming of a "life on Broadway". She came to her senses, and pursed her higher education experience, by going to Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh, and when she moved to California, finished her Bachelors Degree and Masters Degree in Communicative Disorders at California State University, Long Beach. She has been a practicing Speech-Language Pathologist both in the schools and privately to the present. She has also taught part time at the college level. She has worked with all age groups throughout her career and often does trainings for parents in the local school district to support communication skills.