From a father and educator’s perspective, Leonard Stanley is here to give you some advice – whether it’s questions about school, your teenager, family life, expat life or if you just need a dad’s point of view. In Advice from Dad, he answers your tough questions and gets a parent’s perspective.
So, my oldest boy is now a teenager, and you know what that means! It’s time to talk about a topic that most parents dread – one that you can never really prepare for, yet it absolutely needs to happen. That’s right, it’s time to discuss the birds and the bees. For this issue I’m going to share parts of my recent conversation and provide a few pointers on how to talk to your child about sex.
The sex talk is the informal conversation about reproduction and sexual intercourse that every parent needs to have with their child at some point in their teenage year. However, many parents struggle with how to best broach such a sensitive yet important subject. After analyzing my conversation with my son, I found it useful to break down the talk into three simple parts – the technical, the practical and the emotional.
Before I begin, we need to first address the issue of timing. If you are unsure when you should have this talk don’t worry, there is no textbook answer on the best time to discuss sex with your child. So, it’s really our responsibility as parents, to decide the ‘when.’ My wife and I were looking for an appropriate time to have the conversation with our son based on the nature of other conversations we were having at home. So, when he started to ask more mature questions about relationships, we knew the time was right.
As our son approached his teenage years, he had become less communicative and started seeking his own privacy and personal space away from the rest of the family. He wanted to go out more with his group of friends and started looking for other ways to seek his independence. It was at that moment we decided that a conversation was in order. Pay close attention to your child’s behavior as they may give off signals to let you know that the time is right. Whatever your choice may be, just be careful that you don’t leave it too late and wait until you suspect certain activities are already taking place before the big talk.
The Technical
When having this conversation, it is best, and probably easiest, to start off with the formal and scientific aspects of sex. Be technical. Don’t dumb down the speech or use euphemisms when describing body parts or actions, as I believe it helps reinforce the seriousness of the conversation. A strategy that I used was to ask what my son already knows about sex and then build from there. He was aware of the basic knowledge of biology and that the sperm fertilizes the egg, yet when I asked him how all that happens he had no clue! That is where you can fill in the blanks.
The Practical
If every parent had it their way, then our children would all wait until marriage before engaging in sexual activities. However, in reality we know that is not the case. Children are curious and usually end up exploring that curiosity sometime during their teenage years. So, I feel that it is our job to prepare them with all the necessary information to make sure they make the best decisions. No sex talk is complete without ‘how to protect yourself.’ Discussions about pregnancy, condoms, birth control, STDs and overall safety are a must. Your child should be equipped with as much information as possible before they make a potentially life changing decision and this is no exception to that rule.
The Emotional
This is just as important as the other parts of this conversation and should not be neglected. When discussing sex, maturity is paramount. The same is true for engaging in the act. Both consenting parties should be well prepared to deal with the emotional connections that come with the action as well as the heartache followed by a failed relationship. Also, the two parties should be able to have open and honest communication. One of the things I told my son was, “If having a straightforward conversation with the person about sex is too weird, difficult or awkward, then that is a solid indication that you may not be ready to take that next step.”
This is obviously a much more complex and important topic than a few words in the back of a magazine can manage to cover, but I hope I was able to give you a bit of insight into what it was like for me to have this conversation with my child. I hope you can take away some ideas that will help you when it is time to do the same with your children.
Leonard Stanley was born and raised in Washington D.C., and has lived in Shanghai since 2009 with his wife and two young children Kyle (12) and Christopher (8). Leonard teaches Theory of Knowledge as well as Language & Literature at the Western International School of Shanghai.
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