Love him or hate him, Dr. Drew Pinsky is on a constant mission to help people. (Whether they want it or not.) His latest T.V. effort is named, provocatively, “Sex…With Mom and Dad.” On the show, he plans to help parents talk with their kids about sex, thereby (hopefully) promoting healthy relationships. Or whatever.

A lot of rumors get tossed around when Drew finds himself in the news for saying something controversial, but here are the facts: he is a board-certified internist, a type of physician that specializes in difficult-to-diagnose diseases. (Kind of like Dr. House, but in real life). In addition to his medical practice, Drew supervises a rehab clinic in Pasadena and hosts two radio shows. The guy just can’t stay busy enough.

In a recent interview with TV Guide, Drew talked about why he felt a need to do this show. He feels that parents are afraid to even broach the topic of sex with their children; that, somehow, it constitutes an endorsement if the subject even comes up. But in an age when kids are exposed to so much sexual material, Drew believes that it is particularly important to keep communication open.

His recommendation? Don’t teach or preach, just make sure that your kids know that they are always welcome to come to you with any questions. The problem, as he diagnoses it, is that kids know “everything and nothing” about sex. They are bombarded with images and ideas, but they don’t know how to process it without guidance.

Drew has a lot of experience working with addicts, for whom knowledge doesn’t necessarily equal experience. And teenagers, he says, are the same way:

TVGuide.com: You work with people on TV all the time, but what does it really take for young people to change behavior, even with all this information?

Pinksy: That is the question. By the way, when you solve that, let’s go to Stockholm together and get the Nobel Prize, because this has been the constant struggle in the adolescent age group, because they’re wonderfully knowledgeable, and yet we’ve done little to change their behavior. What my approach has been is to create a relatable source, that is to say, study cases. They don’t care what I say, but when they hear a young person going through a heavy experience, and I’m able to make sense of it for them, then they hear what I’m saying.

Tags: web, trivia, pop culture

Popularity: 1% [?]

Categories: TV stories //