Today, the Monday before Christmas, I find myself sitting at my father’s kitchen table. My family is bustling around, working, cleaning, cooking. There are laundry and dishes being washed. A lot is happening. A lot of good. It’s making me grateful for family, communication, and other good things.
So today and tomorrow I’m writing about lessons that focus on communication and negotiating space between people. I may continue to write about this after Christmas too – family will still be heavily present in my thoughts and physical space at least until my kids head back to school in early January!
Today’s lesson plan comes from Older, Wiser, Sexually Smarter and is a long one:
CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SEX:
Skills to Navigate Challenging & Turbulent Waters
OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
- Understand how to overcome roadblocks and inhibitions in conversations about sex.
- Enhance their ability to initiate discussions about sex.
- Have a new skill set and formats to make discussions about sex easier.
RATIONALE
Talking about our most intimate needs is at best challenging, often intimidating, and at worst, terrifying. Even in the most solid of long-term relationships, it can be difficult to discuss feelings, attitudes, needs, and wants about sex. This session gives participants an opportunity to overcome personal mindsets that block open communication about sex, learn a continuum of skills to initiate open conversations, and discuss the subject of sexual needs and wants using several formats. This session allows participants the freedom to ask for what they want and need, and listen to the needs of others without judgment.
Note: This session is longer than the typical lesson in this manual. You may choose to conduct this lesson in two parts, focusing on simple communication issues in the first session, and then continuing with complex issues in the second session.
Part of what I like about this lesson is how in-depth it goes. Communication is not easy – as evidenced by my children caterwauling on the couch ten feet away from me – and often takes longer than you think it will – as evidenced by me sitting down to finally write today’s post hours after I thought I would.
But it’s still worth it.
It’s worth the yummy, cinnamony, cozy feeling of being cooped up with the people you love for longer than you might have initially realized it would feel like, going through the crunched, pouty phase, and coming through it to laughing yourself silly late into the night.
I think my family would benefit from a non-sexual version of this lesson. I also think that if I tried to run this by them over dinner tonight that they would tease me about it mercilessly for years to come.
So the Christmas dinner table might not be the best place for a communication lesson, but if you’re running one anywhere else, this is a fantastic resource!
