Blog

Amanda coached on the following:

1. (01:16) –  I find myself much more irritable with my children during my PMS period, what can I do to make this better? Also, I’m anticipating Mother’s Day with the death of my mom recently.  It will also be the 7 month anniversary of her death and would have been my parents’ anniversary.  How can I prepare myself?
2. (14:57) – We have the possibility of adopting a baby with some potential health problems.  I am scared for the unknown.  This could create lifelong barriers for our family.  I don’t want to have regrets but I also don’t want to disrupt the homeostasis of my family.
3. (31:01) – I listened to the recent BDSM podcast and liked the thoughts of the dominant man, but when I thought about my husband doing that I had a visceral reaction.  How can I change that?  I also just found out my teenage son is following pornhub on Instagram.  I want to have a conversation with him that creates connection and love and not judgement.
4. (46:26) – Just got back from spring break trip where we encouraged our 16yo son to hang out with other teens. Now he is constantly texting a 14 yo girl that lives on the other side of the country. I woke up at 1am feeling uneasy and found that he had taken his phone that we keep charging in kitchen. I checked his messages and found that they were talking a lot about sex and everything you can imagine about what they think they will be interested in sexually(both are virgins). I was shocked at what my son was asking and texting about. I realize he probably hears stuff at school but I was surprised by all the terms he mentioned such as “fingering.fisting”, “squirting”, blow jobs, sex up against a wall, etc. from . (Those are all terms he brought up first. She asked about kink/fetishes and he didn’t even know what that was so she had to explain.) It was obvious to me that he realizes a woman getting pleasured is important and sex isn’t just about a man getting off, so I was proud he knew that since that is not the narrative I grew up with. I feel like we need to address what they were texting about but we don’t want to say the wrong thing. We want to be curious so he feels he can open up, but I’m pretty sure if he realizes I read every single text..he will feel shame and embarrassment which is what I don’t want to happen. They are talking a lot about masturbation and neither my husband or I want to shame that in fact we both want to share stories from our teenage years so he knows he is totally normal. I’m disappointed because he tends to be very black and white and judges other peers who act one way at church and a different way at school and I feel like his behavior is very incongruent since he is trying to share stuff about our religion (she comes from Jewish heritage but doesn’t go to church) but is mostly talking about sex. He says he’s not interested in going to school dances, dating, etc. yet obviously he is attracted to this girl. I’m concerned conversations aren’t about getting to know each others likes/dislikes/life story but instead are sexting. My husband who works with the youth a lot wants to focus on FSOY and how it doesn’t talk about sexual relations but sexual intimacy. He doesn’t think our son understands what intimacy is but thinks that he in his mind, as long as he isn’t physically having intercourse, everything else is ok. I’m hesitant with that approach because he is attending church and becoming more involved after expressing no interest and that he wasn’t sure if “he believed like we do” when he was 14-16 yrs old. We have both listened to your podcast from last week and JFF’s most recent podcast on her Conversations with Jennifer podcast but I could really use some help so I don’t let my fear and deep down desire to control my son take over.