Parenting

The grazed knees a child suffers while learning to walk are not only small and temporary hurts, but essential learning aids. Most of the heartaches and quarrels of adolescence can be seen the same light. There are, however, a few experiences we would all do without, such as causing or having an unwanted pregnancy. There are three ways in which you can attempt to avoid such an event. You can apply rigorous control and discipline on your youngsters, putting the fear of all kinds of retribution into them, and deliberately frustrating any sort of con the opposite sex. You can put your daughter on the pill or sure your son with condoms. Or, you can alight anywhere on e line between these two extremes.
The first option may be appealing as it seems to be the most effective. However, apart from being very hard work, it actually has a very low success rate. As parents throughout the ages have sadly discovered, confining adolescents, whether physically or intellectually, is the perfect way to incite them to rebellion and to focus their minds on the very thing you are forbidding. It might work in an isolated or rigid society where everyone has the same views. In Western society where the media uses our sexuality to us goods and manipulate us, it is almost impossible to prevent your young people from obtaining some level of sexual awareness and you can't keep them in ignorance

What you can do is to arm them against misinformation, misunderstanding and misinterpretation, and you do that by increasing their knowledge. We often say that 'a little learning is a dangerous thing', and use this as an argument for keeping people, particularly young people, in ignorance. The author, Alexander Pone, would he horrified, as his original intention was to say exactly the opposite.

This could well be a good motto for all parents! We also say that ignorance is bliss, and insist that youthful innocence is somehow blighted and sullied by knowledge. From the letters I have received, I am convinced that nothing blights innocence more than the mistakes young people make because they didn't have the facts at their fingertips, and felt unable to talk to either adults or their peers about their confusion.

Going to the other extreme, however, can be just as harmful. Insisting that your offspring be equipped for intercourse as soon as they reach puberty or acquire friends of the opposite sex can be forcing an issue that doesn't yet have relevance. You also insinuate yourself into a part of your teenager's life that should be separate from you. Their sexuality may depend heavily on your acceptance and approval, but their first sexual encounters need to be their own - with people they choose and at a time they choose. If you try to annexe this stage of their development, instead of encouraging their gradual maturation, you hold them back.