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If 'gay' is not in your vocabulary, if being gay is not an option in your world, then you're far more likely to see your kid as anything but gay.

If parents don't instruct their kids on the narrow boundaries of respectful behavior toward the opposite sex, their kids won't learn it anywhere else.

I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them.

Don't judge other people. For example, if you want God's anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

Growing up, I never heard my parents curse, never. The first time I ever said a curse word was with my sister Kim.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

Scrawling 'I'm gay' in lipstick on your parents' bedroom mirror may demonstrate a personal signature of the highest style, but is not particularly sensitive to their feelings. Upon hearing me utter those words almost twenty years ago, my own mother did what and self-respecting middle-class mom would do: went directly into a seizure.

I'm trying to tell kids if they are gay, it's OK to be gay. I've tried to tell families if they have a gay family member to accept them and love them as they always have.

Somehow it seems that all parents are certain that they themselves were victims of abuse in school and that they will not allow this to happen to their children. Even though children can also be the cruelest group imaginable - especially the cutest of them.