I think the most important thing for parents to digest is the sober news that about 80% of human beings have sex before their 19th birthday for the first time. So we want that experience to be safe. We want this experience to be loving, and we want this experience to teach them something about how to have a healthy relationship. Now, obviously, we're not going to be there every step of the way, but we can prepare them by, first of all, talking very candidly and openly about birth control, talking about protection and how to avoid STDs.

How to Talk to Your Teenagers about Sex and Relationships

For teenagers, it is very important to talk to them about the emotional piece of relationships. The fact that men and women have sex in different ways and for different reasons, and that girls fall in love through sex because their body excretes oxytocin, the female bonding hormone. And when I say sex, I even mean kissing and holding hands. That physical contact gets girls' juices flowing, and they start to believe they're in love. Whereas a guy can have sex with the same woman for months and not like her one bit more than he did that first date. Of course, we can also tell our boys that men have much better sex when they do connect their feelings with it.