Raising Young People In a Sexualised World

How do we raise happy, healthy resilient children in a sex saturated world?

Children and young people are bombarded with hyper-sexualised messages and images in media, billboards, toys, games, magazines and clothing. Many authorities believe this exposure is contributing to an environment which is increasingly harmful to our kids, by presenting their value and others in terms of their looks and sexual attractiveness. Negative physical and mental health out-comes include anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating dis-orders, low self-esteem and poor academic performance.

Heathdale Christian College wants to do all we can to equip parents with the tools to combat this unhealthy culture. Drawing from current research on the subject, Melinda will take us on a ‘pop culture’ tour, exploring with us how the proliferation of sexual imagery is contrib-uting to a distorted view of bodies, relationships and sex-uality in young people, having a negative impact on their physical, emotional and social development and hamper-ing our ability to help raise happy, healthy, resilient kids.
What can we do as parents and a community, to address this?

Melinda Tankard Reist is an author, speaker, media commentator, blogger and advocate for women and girls. She is author/editor of four books including Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (Spinifex Press, 2009), now in its 7th printing, and Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry (Spinifex Press, 2011, co-edited with Dr Abigail Bray). 

A newspaper columnist, Melinda is a regular guest on Channel 7’s Sunrise and Morning Show, and has also ap-peared on ABC Q&A and The Gruen Sessions as well as many other TV and radio programs. Melinda is co-founder of the inspiring grassroots campaigning movement, Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation, exposing corporations and advertisers.
She is also an ambassador for World Vision, Compassion and the Raise Foundation.