Resources Developed
■ Exploring personal moral standards
■ Learning to face consequences
■ Learning to be responsible
■ Learning to make considered judgments
■ Learning to consider the others’ well-being
■ Learning to make mutually agreed-upon decisionsOutcomes Offered
■ Moral responsibility
■ Consideration of the other
■ Mutual decision making
■ Personal value systems“Did you score?” Brad’s buddies asked when he got to school on Monday morning. They knew
he’d had a date with Jess over the weekend and wanted to know the news... in detail.
It has just been a first date and things had got a little hot. They’d cuddled and caressed but Jess
had drawn an absolute line as to what was okay and what was not. Brad could have gone further, but
his head was telling him something different.
He was at that age where some of his friends had scored and some hadn’t—or at least that was
what they’d said. Monday mornings at school were bragging time about what they had got up to over
the weekend. Brad had no doubt that some had had sex but others hadn’t—and then, there were some
who didn’t talk about what they did at all, so he had no idea.
What a dilemma he found himself in. His body wanted one thing and his mind another. His
friends were telling him to go for it and his parents were telling him something different. Around the
age of puberty he was given a book to read and got the usual sex talk as though his parents were teach-
ing him something new. As if he hadn’t heard about it at school, been to sex education classes, seen
the graffiti, or heard the sniggering comments from his friends in the locker room.
“If you are going to, tell us about it,” his parents had said. “Let us talk it over before you do any-
thing or get a girl into trouble.”
Yeah, thatwould be likely, thought Brad. He was a big enough man to make his own choices,
wasn’t he? This was up to him and Jess, not anyone else.
Thinking that, he began to weigh up his own values. There was a time when he thought it would
be good to save himself until he got married, but nobody seemed to do that anymore. It was stuff that
his parents used to do, not what his generation did. At least he wanted to be serious, he wanted it to
be special, or that’s the way he thought when he wasn’t kissing Jess... and finding himself getting
hot in those parts that get hot when you are held in a passionate kiss. Of course, his friends couldn’t
tell him what to do, nor could his parents.
I bet you would like to know how the story ended. But, to be honest, I don’t know, so I can’t tell
you. However, if you were in Brad’s shoes, what would you do on the next date? How would you
make your own judgment about what was best to do? How would you take responsibility for your
choices? On what principles would you make your choices? Would they include your sense of your
partner’s happiness and well-being? How would you balance your wants and Jess’s stated boundaries?
158 Healing Stories, Teaching Stories