Larry Flynt is the hedonistically obnoxious, but indomitable, publisher of Hustler magazine. The film recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his porn magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for all people.
It's a well-known parental habit to underestimate the trouble your own child gets into.
For some, it's always "other people's kids" who smoke, drink, do drugs or have sex. Turns out, little Johnny and Jane may not be the responsible digital citizens many parents believe them to be, either.
The Center for Cyber Safety and Education, based in Clearwater, Florida, commissioned a study last year that looked at how children in grades four through eight use the internet -- and how their parents perceive them to be using it.
Patrick Craven, director of the center, said the organization hired Shugoll Research to survey 192 students and their parents in four cities: Los Angeles, St. Louis, Baltimore and Bethesda, Maryland.
While the sample size is too small to generalize to a national population, the results reveal a sizable disconnect in parents' perception and children's actual use of the internet.
Even in this relatively young subset, nearly half said they had used the internet at 11 p.m. or later on school nights, in ways other than doing homework. A third of the kids surveyed, and nearly half of the middle schoolers, said they had been on at midnight or later. Only 11 percent of parents perceived that their children were online that late at night.
That's just one parental blind spot the survey discovered.
About 3 in 10 students admitted they use the internet in ways their parents would not approve of. For the middle schoolers, this rose to 4 out of 10. What were the forbidden online activities they reported doing? Lying about their age to get onto adult websites, listening to or downloading music with adult content, watching movies or programs meant for adults, searching the internet for adult topics and using a webcam to Facetime with a stranger.
Four out of 10 children in the study said they had connected with a stranger online, and more than half of those kids told the stranger they were older than their real age.
When parents were asked if they thought their children were downloading and listening to music with adult content, 63 percent said yes. Actually, only 31 percent of students said they did this. The same was true for movies with adult content: Twice as many parents thought their children were watching them, compared to what children reported doing.
But when parents were asked if they thought their child had chatted with and tried to meet someone they'd met online, only 2 percent thought so. Fifteen percent of kids admitted they had.
"Parents are kind of missing the point,"
Craven said. This study wasn't even done with high schoolers, he said: We're talking about elementary and middle school-aged kids.
"The results prompted us to create all new materials for parents on our website," he said.
The organization's site, safeandsecureonline.org, features a section for parents and guardians, which includes several suggestions:
-- Create a charging station: a spot where everyone's devices get plugged in at night. "You have to get (devices) out of the room," Craven said. Ninety percent of children said they had a device to access the internet in their room at night. Nearly 4 in 10 students said they had been really tired at school because of late-night internet use; a few arrived tardy or missed school due to it.
-- Consider apps or parental controls offered on family plans by wireless providers that allow parents to turn off the Wi-Fi connection in the house at certain times.
-- Make discussions about internet use an ongoing conversation, not a one-time thing. Nearly all children in the survey acknowledged that their parents or school had taught them about internet safety. But many parents have weak follow-through on rules and oversight.
-- Join the social media sites your children and their friends use. In this age group, the most popular ones were reportedly Instagram, Snapchat and Vine, with moderate numbers of kids also using Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Ask.fm. You don't have to be an active social media user, but being familiar with how the sites work and periodically checking in is a good idea. "If they know you are on, it will make an impact," Craven said.
-- Play your child's video games with him or her occasionally. Gaming these days has a social media aspect, and involves conversations with other people -- often strangers.
While you may be good about picking games rated for your child's age, the in-game conversations with other players may not be age-appropriate.
There's a thin line between regularly talking about online use and lecturing or nagging.
Tweens and teens are masters at tuning out the latter.
If this survey is any indication, these conversations require far better follow-through by parents.
As the child of divorced parents I can vividly recall the day that I was told that my parents would be getting divorced. My sister and I were both seated. My sister was sitting on the cushioned chair while I was seated on our pink carpeted floor. As both my parents stood in front of us, they uttered the words that no child desires to hear, “We’re getting a divorce.”
I had only recently become familiar with the term divorce because my elementary school started a small group for children of divorced parents a few weeks earlier. For some reason I remember knowing that I would be in that group one day even though I never knew my parents had issues. They never argued in front of my sister and I, nor did they seem like they didn’t love each other. Yet whatever was going on in their world led them to the painful reality that divorce would be best.
My sister’s response to the news was tears and hysteria while mine was calm uncertainty. Questions ran through my mind. What does this mean for me? Where will I go? Will they still be friends? What now? These questions and many more bombarded my thoughts as I watched life, as I knew it, take many turns. Although I remained sane through the process, I continued to add questions to my list that I hoped someone at some point would stop and answer.
My love for my parents continued to grow as I embraced the truth that they responded the best way they knew how. With no parents to guide them and no nonjudgmental sources of wisdom to direct them, they focused on moving on with their lives as best they could. So my life moved along. Changes happened and I returned to school to function as a seemingly normal 8 year old.
Years down the line I found myself in a similar situation making a similar mistake. I removed myself from a bad marriage, got divorced and kept moving forward. I minimized the effect that my divorce would have on my children because they were still toddlers. Yet, a broken home isn’t easy for anyone.
All who were once in the home are impacted by the brokenness in some way.
In an attempt to find a new normal for my children and I, I brushed their past life under the rug as if it didn’t exist and began implementing a whole bunch of “News;” new house, new family, new school, new routine, new life. I never took the time to explain to them in a child like manner the nonexistence of their old. I anticipated that the new things in their life would be so amazing they wouldn’t miss the old.
But that isn’t what happened. They enjoyed the new but at some point they both wanted to go back through their world of new things and find an explanation to why the old things just...disappeared.
Hindsight is 20/20 and this has proven to be true for me. My past experiences have taught me that their is a proper way to respond to a child after divorce. Although we may be in the habit of brushing things under the rug, this is not a healthy response for children or adults. Children need a safe place to land their thoughts, feelings and emotions and we should be that safe place.
Here are 7 ways you can be intentional about being that safe place for your children and fostering healthy healing after divorce.
Be Safety: Be a safe place for your child to share their thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Ask Questions: Ask open ended questions to encourage conversation so that you can help them process through their thoughts. Head issues become heart issues if they go unattended. Be Reassuring: Reassure your child that although some things will change, some things will also remain the same. Things will ultimately turn out okay.
Love Them: Remind them often that you love them and let them know that your decision to divorce has nothing to do with them.
Connect Them: Connect them with individuals, groups and communities that will help foster healthy healing for them
Learn Them: Discover their love language and speak it as much as possible. There are many tools to help guide this discovery.
Listen to Them: Be slow to speak and quick to listen. They need your open ears and heart more than anything.
A healthy and fulfilling life after divorce will not happen without some effort on our part. It will require for us to be intentional with our interactions, as well as, supportive. If we desire to have children that are emotionally healthy we must be willing to make the sacrifice. No one is perfect but everyone can be intentional.
We all tend to fall into a routine in long-term relationships.
We make habits and rituals as a couple that help shape and define our lives together. Maybe it’s going to breakfast on a Saturday morning, one partner making the bed while the other makes coffee, or a particular way of celebrating a holiday.
If we are going to form habits as a couple, why not form good ones?
Here are six habits that all really happy couples have: 1. Make time for each other.
It’s easy to feel that our relationship will be there when we’ve done everything else we need to do. It’s easy to take our relationship for granted while we work on our goals.
We can tell ourselves that we’re doing it for the relationship or that we’re building a future together, but the truth is, spending time on our relationship needs to be a habit and a priority now, so our relationship is there in future.
Make spending quality time (with just the two of you and no TV) a habit. Make date night a priority; give yourselves time and space to just be present together, enjoy each other’s company and relax.
2. Practice appreciation.
Appreciation builds love and trust. Telling our partner the things we appreciate about them brings us closer; we become kinder to each other, and more generous.
We can fall into the trap of thinking our partner knows all the reasons we love them, but often they don’t. We all have self-doubt at times, and being told what is appreciated by others is uplifting, nourishing and intimate.
Make sharing appreciation with your partner a habit. If you appreciate something your partner does for you, let them know. If you like the way they’ve done their hair today, let them know. Do they have a quirk you love? Tell them.
The more you share, the easier everything becomes and the more love and trust builds between you.
3. Make sex a habit.
Things in the bedroom were roaring at the start of your relationship, but then you found it was only happening a couple of times a week and some days you suddenly realize how long it’s been since you were intimate like that.
Sex isn’t the most important aspect of a relationship, but an enjoyable, intimate sex life can nourish a relationship, bring us closer and build love.
To keep our sex life happy and hot requires some energy and attention. It’s nurtured by us setting aside time for it, talking about what we want and making it special.
Regular love-making can become a ritual that is both beautiful and satisfying.
4. Say sorry.
I’m the first to put my hand up and say I find it hard to say I’m sorry. I become defensive, I feel like there’s something wrong with me and my shame blocks intimacy in our relationship.
But I know the intimacy and the connection that lies on the other side of my fear. I’m so familiar with the softening in my partner’s eyes when I can take full responsibility for what I’ve said or how I’ve behaved.
Saying sorry builds connection, love and compassion.
Taking responsibility helps us grow.
Apologize wholeheartedly and often.
5. Reassess where your relationship is going.
Really happy couples talk about how their relationship is going, what they love about it and what they would like to work on.
Happy couples feel comfortable voicing their needs for the relationship and holding a shared view for the direction of the relationship.
Reassessing your relationship reminds you it’s a priority and keeps it fresh. I recommend couples take time regularly to talk about where their relationship is at and how to make it even better going forward. 6. Take time apart
.
Taking time apart is a vital part of a healthy relationship. Remaining individuals keeps a relationship strong and vibrant.
Our partner can’t be our everything; we have to keep our own interests, our own goals and own desires.
Time to ourselves is nourishing. Taking time apart allows us to give more to our relationship and keeps our relationship alive and fresh.
The great thing about habits is that once they become habits, they don’t feel like work anymore. Start building habits that make your relationship amazing.
Isiah McKimmie is a Relationship Therapist, Sexologist and Tantra teacher helping people open to confidence, sensual pleasure and deep intimacy. She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her incredibly patient partner and reaches clients all over the world through the wonders of the internet. Be sure to visit her at www.isiah-mckimmie.com for more on intimacy, connection and pleasure.
British barrister Archie Leach (John Cleese) falls into a life of crime somewhat by accident. Until he meets Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis), he lives a boring life with a semi-successful legal career. Trying to double cross her partner in crime George Thomason, Wanda tries to seduce his lawyer (Leach). Though they never have sex, Leach is clearly enamored and lets his guard down enough for Gershwitz to confuse his line of questioning in court and even calls her “darling.” This sets off a massive courtroom brawl as George attacks Archie, whose wife later decides to divorce. With no marriage or career to hold him down, Archie resolves to flee to South America with Wanda where they can live from stolen jewel money.
The Huffington Post
There may come a time after divorce when you think you’ll never move on. The good news is, you eventually do move past the pain, and the experiences of these divorcées prove it. Below, nine HuffPost bloggers and readers on Facebook share the moments they realized they had finally moved on from their marriages.
1. “The moment I knew I’d moved past everything was when I decided not to always respond to my ex. I used to think I needed to respond to everything he said and argue, and once I got past that point, it was truly liberating.” — Lindsey Light
2. “I prefer to see moving on as a gradual evolution, sometimes leaping forward, sometimes falling backward ... I think the giant exhale came when it struck me that she, and I (and everyone, really) are on our own individual journeys of healing. And when I could see her journey as something independent of me, the most crucial cord was cut.” — Adam Gilad
3. “I have always been a people-pleaser but I am slowly learning to get past that and please myself. That being said, I didn’t know I was ready to move on until I saw that my ex and my son were both OK. My ex is thriving and in a good place and my son has been unfazed. Seeing them happy and moving on themselves has allowed me to do the same.” — Adam Petzold
4. “I knew I’d moved on from my divorce when I was ready to date and meet interesting new men to share my life with. Even though my ex and I were in agreement that our relationship was done, I still needed to grieve and process the ending of a long marriage. I used that time to find myself again including doing things I’d always wanted to do but never did. It was a deep introspective time of discovery that lit my inner fire with new passion that helped me come to the dating game balanced and whole again.” — Lisa Copeland
5. “I started writing again. After my ex-husband left, words eluded me, buried by months of fighting, tears and anxiety. I finally allowed myself time to readjust to my new life, slowly building confidence in the person I was becoming without him. One day I sat down with my laptop and the words poured out. As the sentences flowed from my fingertips, I knew everything would be OK.” —
Trish Eklund
6. “I knew I’d moved on from my divorce when, to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi, I became the change I wished to see in the world. After a period of blaming, I asked myself: ‘What do I have to learn from this?’ and sought to understand what I had to learn about being a man in a relationship. The insights I found helped me become the change I wished to see. I realized that as difficult as the whole experience was, it helped me grow positively as a person who is stronger and wiser. It was at that point I knew I had moved on and was ready for a new relationship.” — Elliott Katz
7. “It was my second Christmas and ‘sharing’ the holiday of my two daughters. They opened gifts on Christmas morning and he picked them up. I closed the door and instead of crying, I was at peace. I cleaned up and went out to dinner with a girlfriend and really felt that my anger for him and the girlfriend was meaningless. I made a New Year’s resolution that I was walking away and starting over — a new chapter. It really happened.” — Dana Bushee
8. “I knew I had moved on when I realized I hadn’t thought about my ex-wife for days. My divorce was no longer hanging over me and I was looking forward, not backward. That was a wonderful moment.” — Chad Stone
9. “I had work off and was watching movies all day. I remember laughing out loud at a movie, then stopping myself and realizing that I was actually happy again. I was happy just sitting there, doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying the time alone. I remember saying out loud, ‘wow,’ because I knew I had crossed that line of being over the pain of my divorce.” — Danny Gutierrez
A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a “60 Minutes” expose on Big Tobacco. This film, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, is based on the true story of Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a whistleblower in the tobacco industry who exposed lies Big Tobacco told for decades about cigarettes. He served as a central witness in lawsuits filed by all 50 states (most notably Mississippi), which were eventually settled for $246 billion.
Larry Flynt is the hedonistically obnoxious, but indomitable, publisher of Hustler magazine. The film recounts his struggle to make an honest living publishing his porn magazine and how it changes into a battle to protect the freedom of speech for all people.
