• Carve out 10 minutes to talk to each of your kids using age appropriate language. For young children, you can talk about what our wonderous bodies can do. Older children can talk about consent and respect. Middle and high school kids can talk about safer sex practices.
• Share an age-appropriate book about sexuality with your child.
• Plan future "dates" together with your child where you can spend time and talk.
• Tweet out to your local legislators and school board members that you want to see comprehensive sex education in your schools and around the country
• For more ideas and support with talking to your kids about sex and relationships, check out Teen World Confidential: Five-Minute Topics to Open Conversation About Sex and Relationships

• Allow ten minutes in the classroom to discuss medically accurate internet resources young people can go to for information.
• Allow your students to write down questions that they have about sexuality which can be shared with the nurse or health educator.
• Give high school students access to condoms in the nurse's office.
• Reach out to your administrators and ask for comprehensive sex education curricula to be taught in your schools.
• Demand sexuality education be taught starting in Kindergarten and built on each year.

On February 2, 1919, pastors around the country preached abstinence on National Social Hygiene Day. Why? There was a tremendous problem with syphilis; which in turn meant individuals were having sex - outside of marriage. To preserve the sanctity of marriage and to help quell the incidence of VD (today we call it STI), people were told to abstain from sexual activity unless married. It didn't work.

One hundred years later, February 2, 2019, we reinstated National Social Hygiene Day, but renamed it to be more reflective of today's educational needs. We "preach" about the necessity of honest, open communication with young people about sex and relationships.

Just ten minutes - that's all it takes! Ten minutes to start the conversation with your young person to keep them healthy and safe. This is grow into ongoing conversations throughout the year.

A century later, syphilis is on the rise. It is time to take the shame out of sex and empower individuals with medically-accurate information to help them make smart decisions, whatever that choice may be.

Are you in?