Parenting

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. Having produced a child and been in sexually active relationship for at least 13 years does not necessarily make you an expert in the subject, however much your society at large think it should!

Your unease at your teens' probable sexual interest, your fears of their possible sexual adventuring, and the disagreements that can arise over these, lie behind most of the arguments that come up between parent and teenager, whatever the overt cause -clothes, friends, time-keeping or manners. After all, what moor dramatic statement could a young person make to indicate than they have moved from being a child towards being an adult than to establish a sexual relationship, or show an interest in having one? In denying that they are ready for this stage in their life, it may well be that you are saying that you are not ready to accept the loss of control this implies.

We often do not realize that there are two entirely separate elements at stake here. What your teenager is seeking to define and explore is their sexuality. What you are afraid they may become involved in at too early an age is sexual activity. Helping and encouraging your adolescent to become aware of and at home with their sexuality is not the same as condoning or accepting their having sex with another person.

Being comfortable with your own sexuality has nothing to do with being in a sexual relationship. Indeed, it could be argued that some of the people most settled in the awareness of their own sexuality are those who choose a life of celibacy. Certainly, many of us who are in such relationships are anything but confident and happy with the situation and our own feelings. Awareness of sexuality is, in effect, part and parcel of coming to terms with your whole self as a rounded, creative and happy human being. Young children are aware that their bodies can give them certain pleasurable sensations. In adolescence, physical changes demand that the young person be aware of greater potential in such pleasure, and emotional development leads them to realize that these sensations can involve other people and have far-reaching implications.