Parenthood: introducing sex education to teens

Source CDC unsplash

The hardest stages of development in humans is undoubtedly the parenthood and adolescent stages. Trying to understand your wards sexual preference and idea about sex is a very crucial and important stage for both parents and their children.

Topics about sex is the most left out conversation in every family. Parents are scared as to how their children would react to the conversation and the teens are scared of getting in trouble approaching their parents about sensitive topics. So how should the parents try to ease out the tension and make thier kids warm up to them? How should parents start a conversation about sex education with thier wards? How much as culture and tradition caused neglect to a very important topic as sex education?

"This makes me laugh. Indian immigrant parents tend to be weird about this. Indian “sex education” consists of most parents telling their kids not to interact with the opposite sex until they graduate college and get a job. As soon as they get a job, their parents pressure them to get married and produce grandchildren. How the - is your kid supposed to find someone to marry them within one year when they've never successfully interacted with the opposite sex? Learning to flirt and date takes time. Finding someone you love and want to marry takes even more time."

Source sebastian leon prado unsplash

"My parents were a little different about this. When I turned 13, my dad summoned me into his office for a man to man talk. He started off with a short speech about how I’m growing up, becoming a young man, and how he needs to explain a few things to me. Then he proceeded to tell me how babies were made and the basics of safe sex. Next was a speech about controlling desire and not letting my hormones get the best of me."

Source Quora - Adi Chhabra

Adi Chhabra a user on Quora shared his experience on how his parents approached him about his sexual belief.
Do you think they took a good route?
His parents did not allow their culture and tradition to stop them from doing the right thing. Many cultures such as that of the Indians are likely to prohibit such conversations to prevent corrupting their childrens minds, most of their marriages are fixed, most of their children are not aware of the sexual principles before being forced to marriage.

"My Dad got me on my own and said “do they teach you those things in school?”. I said “yes” and he replied “good.”
That was it."

Source Quora post-Eric lund

Eric lund a user on Quora had a more difficult approach to sex education. Yes schools teach their students topics on sexual education, but there are limits to what they can tell their students, parents should not try to dodge their roles but rather face it head on.
What do you think about Eric's plight

"We always talked to her about sex in age-appropriate terms, and answered questions as they came up. When she got close to puberty, we gave her a book for any questions she was too embarrassed to ask us about, which she appreciated.
We were also careful to include non-heterosexual viewpoints in our discussions, making it clear that she might want to date boys or girls (or no one) when she got older, and that was fine. We were very glad we took that approach, as she came out to us when she was 11."

Source reddit post - dirkdastardly

Source sofatutor unsplash

Parents need to imbibe what this family has done for their daughter. Communicating with their daughter to an extent where she no longers needs to hide her view about her sexuality from them, while carefully showing her a true path to follow.

There are many ways to approach sexual education, but the important thing is to understand your child's point of view and understand his/her ideologies then carefully correcting it rather than imposing your own ideas on them. Parents should make sure to maintain a good communication to prevent them from keeping to themselves.

@dayotemi