When your offspring finally do let slip the fact that they have a boy or girlfriend, how are you to react? Some parents, as we have already mentioned, do so with criticism or animosity, in an attempt to keep their young people in check. They reveal their jealousy and possessiveness by finding fault with their 'rival' and belittle them to, or in the hearing of, their teenager. Some parents find themselves drawn to an opposite but equally devastating approach.

As parents, we often feel that we have excellent reasons for keeping control of our youngsters' spending. After all, we say, look at that expensive jacket that was only worn once or twice! If we hand over the reins, they will only make a hash of it. This is a bit like throwing a child who has never seen water into the deep end of a swimming pool and crowing 'There you are. I said she'd never learn to swim!' as she goes under for the fourth time.

As they experiment with ways of communicating with you, our teenagers will also be learning how to get on with their peers. You may well find the degree of allegiance they give to their friends, and the importance they place on their opinions, difficult to accept. Friendships between young children can be intense, but on the whole it is during adolescence that young people find particular value in such relationships.

Young people will be acutely sensitive about their 'crushes'. They may want to share their enthusiasm with you - showing you pictures and telling you the fascinating details of’ the loved one's' life, thoughts and ambitions. You may well find the subject tedious, the person unattractive and the whole thing either embarrassing or ludicrous. Make this clear, and you won't be telling your teenager that the two of you have different tastes; you will be telling them that they have lousy taste!

Parents might look anxiously for a boy or girlfriend, even though they may not want to cope with the attendant disagreements, because it at least reassures them that their teenager is 'normal', and not homosexual. Most young people experiment with members of their own sex, without this necessarily being their permanent sexual orientation. But the recent change in the law that lowered the age of consent for gay sex to eighteen (soon, perhaps, to sixteen in line with heterosexual age of consent) affects the fact that most boys who are going to find their sexual partners among their own sex are hardly likely to have a sexual moratorium in their teenage years.

Perhaps the most difficult and contentious area for you and your teenagers to discuss is their sexuality. While teenagers can be experiencing difficulties in coming to terms with their burgeoning sexual awareness, you may have the very real difficulty in even accepting that such feelings do or should exist in them. Sex may well be an area in which you do not feel entirely comfortable or well-informed.