It’s been a week of tough conversations.

Conversations I’d rather never have to have with my kids, but conversations that have to be had.

Conversations that deep down inside I want to believe that my kids don’t need to hear, because I want to think that we’ve raised them right and they know better, but conversations that I don’t ever want to regret not having.

My kids are hurt. My kids are angry. My kids are tired of feeling like they’re being punished for others’ bad behavior. I don’t care. They need to know the kind of behavior that is intolerable.

They need to know what the right behavior is, and they need to have it relentlessly pounded into their brains so that when a moment arises and they are challenged, they don’t have to wonder what the right thing to do is, they can just do it.

We’ve had to have these conversations about school shootings.

We’ve had to have them about drugs.

We’ve had to have them about social media and electronic devices.

And now, we’ve added sexual assault to the conversations I really wish we never had to have.

I’ve sent two young men off to college this year.

One of them is spending his first year on a campus of a good school, but one that also has a bit of a reputation as a party school.

The other is in his third year at a highly respected institution, which has faced its own share of headlines since he’s been there.

Both landed at their first choice of colleges, and both have been doing well. Both worked their tails off to get where they are. I know that neither of them takes the privilege that has been granted to them lightly.

But, as the recent events at Cornell University show, it only takes one terrible decision or one complete lapse in judgment to bring that all crashing down.

And, as this has played out, sometimes doing nothing at all can be just as devastating.

When I went to school, I struggled with homesickness. I was reluctant to go out and meet new people, and I certainly wasn’t ready to venture out into the big city.

After a week of hiding in my room, I finally decided to venture out onto my dormitory floor.

I waited until late Saturday night, after people started returning from assorted parties and clubs. I joined a group of kids chatting in the hallway and followed them into another dorm room down the hall.

With my luck being what it is, the RA was right behind me and there were open beer cans all over the dorm room we walked into.

The RA had seen when I entered the room and knew that I hadn’t been drinking; however, I was present where illegal substances were, and I was guilty by association.

I will never forget the dormitory adviser calling my parents at 1 a.m. and telling them that I’d been busted for underage drinking.

I remember my dad shouting over the phone that his daughter didn’t drink, and if they were going to accuse me of drinking, he wanted me tested for it immediately, and professionally.

It didn’t come to that. I was let go with a reprimand and placed on probation for the rest of the semester, and a lesson was learned the hard way.

But what I took away from that was my father’s absolute certainty that he had raised a daughter who was not breaking the rules.

Realizing that my parents believed in me and trusted me was a humbling experience, and pretty much guaranteed that I didn’t touch alcohol until I reached legal age.

Coming so close to having everything I’d worked ruined by something I didn’t even do was a sobering experience.

I have told this story to the kids many, many times. Even when I had no intention of doing something wrong, I still managed to wind up in a heap of trouble.

I hope they can learn from my mistakes, and be a lot smarter and more aware of their surroundings.

Also, I do feel like I have to note that the people whose room it was also stood up for me and informed the RA that I had not been participating in any of the activities in the room.

Most of us are still friends to this day.

The boys are at an age where all I can do is lecture and hope. E will be heading off to college in a few years, and that will be an entirely different set of lectures and hopes and fears.

None of this is ideal.

This casts a pall over a time in their lives that is supposed to be exciting and full of adventure, and lead to bigger, better things.

But every young person deserves that opportunity, and we owe it to them to build a community where it is safe to live out those ambitions.

Accepting and justifying toxic behavior at any level needs to stop.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News