During my counseling classes, I routinely assign students to work in pairs. In one particular class session, I said, "Joe, you and Susie hook up for this exercise."

Immediately, one of my students corrected me. "Dr. B., don't use the words 'hook up.' I don't think you know what that means!"

"Well, I guess I don't. What does it mean?"

"Dr. B., hooking up means having a casual 'no strings attached' sexual encounter. I don't think that's what you mean. Correct?"

"Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate you setting me straight."

"Hookups are defined as a sexual encounter which may or may not include sexual intercourse, usually occurring on only one occasion between two people who are strangers or brief acquaintances (Paul, McManus and Hayes, 2000, p. 76)." This encounter is a common risky practice among contemporary college students.

"Research into adolescent and young adult sexuality over the past two decades has traced a set of new scripts for sexual behavior outside of committed relationships, such as hooking up. Heterosexual hooking up commonly involves two students who meet at a campus party or social event, then engage spontaneously in sexual behavior without an assumption of future contact. The term hooking up encompasses a wide range of sexual behaviors and possible future sexual or romantic outcomes." (Allison, 2016, p. 449).

The short answer is yes. Emerging adults, particularly college students, have had one or more casual sexual hookup experiences.

The Online College Social Life Survey (Kuperberg and Padgett, 2016) reports that at the start of college, 62.19 percent of first-year students reported they had a hookup experience.

Additional results from the study indicate:

The American Psychological Association (2024) surveyed 1,468 undergraduate students and found:

The term overparenting is a term that has been used and discussed in popular literature for more than 20 years. Overparenting, which is sometimes referred to as helicopter parenting, is a form of childhood overindulgence called "overnurture."

Parents who are well-meaning overnurture. They are trying to protect their daughters and sons, but in the long run, it can backfire. They overnurture their children by over-loving them, giving them too much attention, doing things for them that they should be doing for themselves, making decisions for them, choosing their friends, and controlling who they date.

Overparenting........

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