FamilyAnne enters her 10 year-old daughter’s bedroom and suggests they discuss what it will be like when Marianne starts to menstruate. “Oh. Mom, not now, I’ve got too much work to do. Besides, we’ve already talked about that in health class.”Mike is driving his 13 year-old son to baseball practice and suggests it’s time they talked about sex. Willy could feel his face flushing and managed to mumble something about not having any questions but if he did he’d be sure to ask his dad.Parents are much more aware of the importance of talking to their children about sexuality and everyone in the family is sharing in our society’s increased sexual permissiveness. Sex is everywhere so parents and their children are frequently sharing exposure to images and story lines about sexuality. One would think it might make helpful parent-child conversations easier but there’s not much evidence to suggest that things have changed very much from the “birds and bees” days.
One thing is clear. Girls begin to experience the onset of puberty earlier than ever. In addition the pressure to be sexual in appearance and to participate in sexual activities also starts younger than ever. Boys still believe they are judged by their ability to “score” early in life. And teenage pregnancy, while declining, is still a major problem, as is sexual harassment and rape. Our children probably do have more information than we did and certainly than our parents did. But do they know enough and do they know how to deal with the social pressures to act out their arousal?
The arrival of the physical and psychological changes associated with puberty is still a painful, embarrassing experience for most children. Their knowledge is often superficial and frequently still laced with much misinformation. Their discomfort combined with parental discomfort to address sexuality continues to put many children through much anxiety and at risk for bad decisions. From a longer-term perspective, adolescent sexual experiences and knowledge often fail to prepare teens for a healthy adult sexual life.
Parents know this and frequently ask for help in trying to change these outcomes. Typically they focus initially on how to talk to their children. Instead the starting point should be developing their own knowledge base as well as taking a look at how they deal with their own sexuality and what are they modeling to their children.
In reality most of us still know relatively little about our sexual anatomy and physiology. Despite having read many books on human sexuality as part of my extensive work with couples, I’ve learned more about male organs and functions through conversations with my urologist spurred by my aging process! Amazing how much more there was to learn. Two of the best books are the third editions of Lynda Madras’ best sellers, “The What’s Happening to My Body?” books for girls and for boys. There are also two organizations committed to sexual education that offer extensive resource lists as well as their own materials. The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and ETR Associates websites are www.siecus.org and www.etr.org, respectively. Spend some time at these sites and find materials that will help you develop your expertise as well as find materials that can be shared with your children.
Okay, so now you are confident that you can actually explain how fallopian tubes work or why boys have “wet dreams.” Parents should then ask each other if they openly discuss their own sex life. If two married adults can’t talk about sex how do you expect to talk to your children about the subject?!! Finally to what extent do you show affection in front of your children and do you still hide your lovemaking from them? Most parents I speak to turn red when I suggest that they would have a better sex life if they didn’t feel they had to wait until their children were asleep or not at home. Going into your bedroom and locking the door to make love while your older children are still up will cause some discomfort for everyone at first. But it allows you to talk about making love as part of what married couples do and actually becomes reassuring to children that their parents love each other, an important issue given the high divorce rates. It especially will make it easier to talk to older children about the role of sexuality in meaningful relationships as well as providing some helpful input to young adult children on the verge of marriage about how to have a successful sexual relationship.
As you can tell from these comments, teaching children about sexuality is not something you do once or twice in “The Big Talk” model of the past. Instead discussing sexuality in all aspects is an ongoing process that may even continue beyond their marriage if they are having problems with conception or if you get a sense that there are sexual issues in the marriage. Thus, the key is having a strong relationship with your child in general. You can’t expect to discuss sex or any other complex issue if you don’t create a meaningful connection with your child. Beyond that you need to recognize that discussions about sexuality will take place many times, some brief, some lengthy, as children go through different stages of life and are in need of new information. Initially it is more anatomy, then more physiology (how the body works), then about dealing with sexual pressures, and ultimately how to be an effective sexual partner in a relationship.
Don’t be put off by your child’s initial resistance. Make it clear it is something important, that you are willing to try to allow her to choose the time to talk, but sometimes you may need to be more insistent if she is avoiding the topic. Leave reading materials around. They’ll get read. Then you can use the materials for some focused conversations. Share your own discomfort with talking about sexuality. It’s natural and real. Share a story about an uncomfortable incident from your own adolescence with your son. It’s about being real and honest, and sensitive as well as knowledgeable. Talk about how you learned (or didn’t learn) about puberty and sexuality. Usually you will be saying that you want to improve on the limited help you received in understanding this complex yet so important aspect of our lives. Even if your children don’t acknowledge it at the time, they will be forever grateful for the help.
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