Sexual assault on college campuses.

It's that time of year - almost - when kids are getting ready to send their college acceptance letters in. Here's one thing that parents of daughters are going to want to read about: sexual assault on campus.

Slate published a great article on sexual assault within athletic programs. The main cause, evidently, is a rape culture where women are viewed as a reward and college officials are reluctant to do anything about the situation because athletics is a major part of college revenue.

There are a few ways to deal with this: 1) Force colleges to investigate rape claims in a timely manner - and to have someone unrelated to the athletics department do it, 2) Have outside investigators come in to deal with rape and sexual assault. By outside, I mean outside the college and college town - since the police in college towns can be just as lame as the colleges, and 3) Take sports out of college.

There's another way too - change the culture of sports in America. When there are high school teams accusing of wholesale rape and cover up, there should be a call for change in the culture of sports. My dream is that sports uncouples from school - after all, kids should go to school to learn and sports should be separate from that. But since that's not going to happen, coaches and parents and other officials need to take this seriously.

Rape is serious. Sexual assault is serious.

Colleges have to release these numbers in accordance with Title IX. So before your daughter sends in her acceptance letters, look at the statistics. And talk with her about rape and what to do - and what not to do - if it happens to her.

We all know, as parents, that there's a chance it happens to our daughters. Then we, as parents, have a job to do - to educate our children to deal with what they need to do if it does happen.

Do I hope that my child never drink, never puts herself into a position where she might be impaired, where she might be raped? Sure. But sometimes it's not about what she does. In fact, rape is a crime committed mostly by men. It's almost ridiculous that we have to speak to our daughters about how to prevent rape - it should be speaking to the sons about not doing it.

It should be the coaches saying, "No raping. No sexual assault. Women and people and should be treated as such." It should be that players accused of sexual assault are banned from practice, investigated, and if found to be perpetrators, are expelled.

Unfortunately that's not the way it works. Rape has become a "women's responsibility to prevent," and there's only so much a woman can do to prevent it.

So take a look at the statistics and have that talk - before your daughter sends in her acceptance letters.

Abby is quite adorable.

Sometimes we forget how adorable our kids are. That's why it is always nice when someone takes pictures of our kids that we'd never be able to get and the kids are all smiling. Mark Oliver, one of the wonderful dad's at our karate studio (anatoliafamilytkd.com) took some pictures of Abby during her Little Dragon's class yesterday. She's so adorable and looks awesome! Here's the fabulous pictures of Abby, future black belt.

My home away from home

My home away from home. I spend a lot of nights, afternoons, and Saturdays here. It's Anatolia Family Taekwondo. It's my martial arts school. I'm one month into my training program. It's one month of solid training with under the guidance of my physical therapist. I had a big foot injury and an appendectomy last year in November. So my physical therapist sets limits so I don't over do it. 

Currently I am limited in jumpin jacks, jumping, and running. My stomach restrictions have been lifted, but my foot ones haven't. 

So I work around them. 

I'm also one month into my continued weight loss journey. I'm 8 lbs down. So that's nice. It would be nicer if clothing sizes wen down. But I'm trying not to focus on that so much. It doesn't always work, but sometimes I can get my mind off it. 

I'm doing more squats. Lots more. I like the way my butt looks :) it's important to a girl to have a nice bit. So squats are doin I for me. I'll keep those up. 

What else is working? Martial arts. 

Martial arts is a whole body workout and is doing wonders for me. I go early twice a week and get a good big workout in. Sometimes with others and sometimes by myself. It takes me an hour or so to do my 30 forms. And then I have weapons to practice. But mostly I do kicking and bag work when I'm there on my own. 

Bag work has a rhythm all it's own. It's stress relie and a great workout. After working out in bags your arms and legs are sore. It's a great feeling. 

So I'm still at it. Not always successfully some days. But I'm working hard to work out every day. 

Amazing talk.

It's that time of year when the TED talks are talked about online and published everywhere. I like looking through the index and seeing what was talked about. Sometimes they have great talks and I listen to them online. Sometimes they make me scratch my head. But here's one talk that everyone should listen to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/the-sexy-lie-tedx-talk-sexual-objectification_n_4597316.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

I included the link to the article because it highlights the main points of the talk for those who don't have time to listen to the talk itself.

The main point is this: Being sexually objectified isn't a good thing, no matter how hard we try and convince ourselves it is.

I hear many parents, young adults, and even kids (yes, that includes kids as young as 5) talk about sexual objectification. The younger ones might not know that's what they are talking about - but it is. How many times do young girls talk about "having pretty dresses" or "being a pretty princess?" It's not that the idea of "pretty" is bad in and of itself. It's that the idea of using looks as a substitute for other things is bad.

We do it everyday as parents. It takes a concerted effort not to.

When your daughter is dressing Barbies (or whatever dolls she has) - what's the comments we make? Do we make more comments when she dresses them in the pretty dresses? What about when our daughters get dressed. Everyone likes to hear that they are looking good- but is that our only comment?

I've had to work hard to make sure that I use other words with my daughter than words about looks. Do I like her to put in ponytails because she's adorable with them - yes. But what do I tell her? I tell her that ponytails help keep her hair out of her eyes so the hair won't get in the way at karate, or while we are cooking, or while we are doing a science experiment. I need to work actively to make sure  that the focus is off looks.

Sexualization of women - and men too - is focused on looks. Especially when the kids are younger. We have a duty to bring our children out of the sexualized world. This means changing the way we talk with our children - boys and girls. If the boys constantly hear their parents praising the girls for looking pretty, then that is what they will do when they grow up with women. It's a reinforcing cycle.

Do I tell my kids when they look good. Sure I do. But do I also tell them when they are doing something smart, that it's awesome when they read, that I like the colors they chose, that they can jump very well, and all kinds of complements. I try hard to not make all my compliments about looks.

It's my little way of contributing to the world by making sure that my children aren't going to be part of the over-sexualization problem.

Or at least that's my hope.