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Teaching the Princess to avoid the Toad

New Book Identifies Five Mistakes Young Women make in Relationships

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Nashville, TN) – Dr. Kenneth Ryan goes beyond purity rings and abstinence pledges to give young women practical advice in the new book, Finding your Prince in a Sea of Toads (Winepress Publishing; January 24, 2011). Based on his years of experience in pre-marital counseling in addition to being the dad of three teenage daughters, Dr. Ryan explores everyday circumstances that young girls face in today’s culture.  From learning the art of conversation to extensive specifics on why pre-marital sex is a bad idea, Dr. Ryan writes in a style that both Christians and non-Christians alike will find compelling.

“I purposefully wrote this book so that anyone of any faith or no faith could benefit,” says Dr. Ryan.  “The Christian community promotes the abstinence message but it seems to be generally ineffective in our current cultural circumstances.  Whatever we have been telling our young women, it hasn’t been working.    Statistically, Christians have pre-marital sex almost as often as non-Christians.  So why is that? Almost everyone knows that God does not want us to have sex outside of marriage.  Even non-believers who have never read the Bible assume that Christians are not supposed to have sex with anyone but a spouse.   I have tried to keep the information in this book relevant to either group.  If you remove religion, pregnancy and STDs from the reasons to abstain, what is left to talk about? Plenty.  And I have tried to address practical matters that affect every woman, regardless of religious beliefs.”

Ryan touches on five mistakes that young women tend to make in dealing with relationships with men.  Ryan ascertains that some women are too passive about finding a mate, sitting alone at home and “hoping Prince Charming will one day knock on their door.” Ryan says passive girls need to learn techniques of engaging boys without appearing desperate.  In contrast, Ryan identifies young women who are too aggressive which he asserts is behavior that may scare off “quality guys.”

Three other mistakes, according to Ryan, are that girls are naïve when it comes to relationships, basing much of their knowledge on peer groups, television shows or movies.  Dr. Ryan believes young ladies need to educate themselves as to the definitive and realistic differences between the sexes.  Ryan says that women also make the mistake of basing decisions on panic and fear that they will never find a mate which often leads to women abandoning their personal convictions.  And lastly, Ryan says the most common and harmful mistake is engaging in premarital sex.

Although much of the information in Finding your Prince in a Sea of Toads concentrates on sex and the travails of sex before marriage,  it is replete with practical suggestions for what any teen or young woman can actively do to improve her chances of finding a quality mate and eliminate her feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. With chapters such as “You Can’t Put a Condom on Your Heart,” “Boyfriend Bait Guaranteed to Work,” and “All Men are Sex Maniacs,” Dr. Ryan mixes humor with real-life examples to explain the differences between men and women when it comes to their emotional and physical responses to sex.

Dr. Kenneth Ryan is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  He and his wife have served as pre-marital counselors for their PCA Presbyterian church for over 10 years.  Dr. Ryan also speaks at parenting conferences, helping parents deal with the challenges of the teenage years.

For further information on the book, visit www.FindingYourPrince.com