Choosing the Best Journey Author:Bruce Cook Covering topics that are highly relevant to lower high school teens, this eight-lesson curriculum powerfully communicates the value of committing to abstinence. Videos that open each lesson lead naturally to discussion. Each 50-minute segment balances information about healthy choices with activities and role-plays that help guys and girls pract... more »ice saying “NO.” Topics include:
Setting Goals
Teens learn the importance of having goals, including three steps to setting goals, as well as how the consequences of teen sexual behavior can keep them from reaching their goals.
Making the BEST Decisions
Engaging in-class activities illustrate that making good decisions requires a thoughtful process and that there are three main barriers to making good decisions. Teens learn startling statistics about alcohol that demonstrate how alcohol impairs good decision-making, including a discussion about date rape.
Avoiding Pregnancy
A powerful video introduces students to the consequences of teen pregnancy and a creative in-class activity helps teens realize the financial impact of being a teen parent. Students learn that only abstinence can completely eliminate the possibility of a teenage pregnancy.
Avoiding STDs
Compelling and up-to-date information is provided about the most common STDs, including what they are, how they are transmitted, and why teens are particularly susceptible to getting STDs. Real-life teens and young adults share their life-changing consequences of getting an STD, including HIV. The lesson concludes with teens learning why “safe sex” does not completely eliminate their chance of getting an STD.
Developing the BEST relationships
This fascinating lesson presents teens with five steps to help build the best relationships, including how to avoid common relational traps. Teens learn that being the right person is important to having the best relationships and the lesson includes an exercise on building self esteem.
Choosing Abstinence Until Marriage
Teens learn about the negative emotional effects of sex before marriage and how abstinence provides freedom: freedom from physical and emotional risks and the freedom to pursue dreams and personal goals. After evaluating the options for themselves, students are given the opportunity to commit to abstinence until marriage. Finally, students learn that compatibility, character, and commitment are all important elements of the best relationships.
Overcoming the Pressure
The lesson opens by addressing the pressures in the media and from peers to be sexually active, including a discussion on the problem of pornography. Teens learn the importance of self-discipline and setting sexual boundaries as a way to overcome these pressures.
Being Assertive
Teens learn and practice, via role plays, specific assertiveness skills to overcome sexual pressures, including the very effective “Set It, Say It, Show It” and “Yes-No-Yes” techniques.« less