Is love a feeling?

That’s one of the questions the inspiring Protect Your Heart program asks teens wherever they encounter them.

“Strong character, smart sexuality” is the motto of the program, which has been used in more than 200 educational institutions in the Americas, Italy and Spain and has reached 150,000 young people and parents. This month it will be presented at a congress in Manila in the Philippines, where it will also be adopted for wider use.

It’s sure needed, especially to replace some of the ‘sex ed’ going on in the schools now.

Our program aims at more than avoiding pregnancies or diseases. We mention also the potential intellectual, emotional and social consequences of sex lacking commitment, but we attempt something even more important, which is to help them to develop the capacity to love. That is why we focus on educating the emotions, which requires effort and brains, and offers better results. The youngsters are encouraged to learn how to harmonize their intelligence, their will and their feelings, so that their behaviour will turn out to be positive.

It’s an education in character, understanding where teens are and how they think, for starters. Go down the list of tendencies they recognize in teens, and you see how well the people behind this program are prepared to meet them with answers to questions the teens may not have even asked….or thought about.

Ask youngsters the meaning of love, they tend to answer, “Love is a very deep feeling that…”. But love = feeling is a false equation that they pick up from the media and the environment in general, leading very often to wrong decisions and heartbreak later on. To counter this confusion is one of the important goals of Protect Your Heart.

Youngsters are led to realize that to love is to seek the good of the other — once again, in relation to each of their five dimensions — overcoming difficulties along the way. Love is demonstrated by genuine concern for parents, siblings, friends, a girlfriend or boyfriend, acquaintances and others. To smile even when one is tired, to explain a homework problem to a friend, to keep grandmother company even when it means listening to the same anecdotes over and over, to share CDs or DVDs with siblings — in all these, practice makes perfect. The equation then becomes: generosity + understanding + patience + care + feeling = love.

This is exceptional. It’s also a great education for parents.

The majority of parents believe that their children are too young to know the truth about the origins of life, but they forget that the media is full of half truths and images. A recent study shows that adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 years, are exposed to nine scenes of sex each hour in programs on some music channels. 

Protect Your Heart believes that, in these matters of life and love, it is better to arrive one year too early than a day too late. Parents are encouraged to bite the bullet: “You can talk to your child about this.” “Don’t delegate it!” “Don’t allow someone else to replace you.” “If you do it, it will be much better, given your knowledge and the strength of your love. You have something that nobody else can give them.”

Parents are thankful for the workshops, because they help them to realize their role as the primary educators in sexuality. They also start to understand their children better, develop communication bridges and learn how to exercise their authority in a constructive way.

Could we get this programs here in the States? Any states, for starters?