ABSTRACT
In 1982, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, Inc., a multi-service family agency, began offering courses in Family Centered Sexuality Education for adolescents and their parents. The family-centered approach brings parents and their adolescent children together to learn new information, to hear each other's points of view, and to go home each week with new ideas for communicating honestly about the sensitive issue of sexuality. This approach best supports the family, the primary source for learning about sexuality. In an attempt to address developmental differences, the chapter considers two curricula—one for high school students and their parents, and one for seventh and eighth graders and their parents. The goals for both programs are the same: to increase sexual knowledge, to increase self-esteem, and to improve communication about sexuality between parents and teens. Parents and teens alike report that they have achieved a sense of enhanced competency in dealing with the issues of sexuality.
