Thank you to the alert reader who just e-mailed me an article from Reuters. I tried to get reprint permission but found no clear directions "how" on their home site.I will reprint parts of it and you can go on your own to www.reuters.com to look for yourself. The article is entitled: "Parents urged to go beyond the 'big talk' about sex."
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Parents should consider having repeated discussions with their children about many aspects of sex instead of one "big talk" on impersonal topics linked to sexuality such as puberty, researchers said on Monday.
"Parents who take a checklist approach... are unlikely to have as great an influence ... as parents who introduce new sexual topics and then develop them through repeated discussions," said their report published in the journal Pediatrics.
The study, entitled "Beyond the 'Big Talk,'" used written surveys given to 312 children in Southern California aged 11 to 15 to assess how frequent and candid their conversations were with their parents about sex.
The more parents talked with their children, the closer their relationships, wrote researchers Steven Martino and colleagues at the Rand Corporation.
The relationships also benefited when the discussions moved beyond "safe" or impersonal subjects such as puberty, reproduction and sexually transmitted diseases to more private topics such as masturbation and how sex feels.
Mothers tended to discuss twice as many sexual topics with their children... as fathers did, the study said.
The report cited earlier studies that showed children who were communicated with were more likely to delay intercourse...
Men! (to quote a Christopher West phrase: "I'm not making this stuff up!") We need to get off our couches and get on our knees to pray for our sons and daughters. Then stop being afraid to talk some wisdom into our children. I know I know - I was trembling last year just thinking about how the heck to bring this subject up. But now I am proof that letting this time in a boy's life become an ongoing conversation truly does bring us closer together.
The more of you who sign in (not with your names, please) the sooner I can 'blend in' my discussions with my oldest son along with yours. I will not betray his confidence by exposing his questions and our discussions to the world.
As your son or daughter asks questions about sex, marriage, life, puberty, etc. - send them in along with your answers.
If they have not yet begun asking - then send in the questions YOU had way back when - along with the answers that would have helped you the most. I need your help.
Don't be afraid! Be brave and get typing!
MJP
2 comments:
I'm not sure that it's fair to say you won't reveal your son's questions because you might betray his confidence, then to ask other people to share their stories when they might have similar confidences.
Either way I am a teen and I find any sort of discussion of sex with my parents to be revolting because I can't help but picture them doing it (which is a disgusting thought).
While I am slightly estranged from my father, my mother and I are very close. We discuss nearly everything, but that. I realize that sex is a beautiful thing etc etc, but my mother represents something more to me than that, and I see it as just another perk of becoming joined to another person until death. It is good in and of itself (within a good mariage), but that good is subordinate to (as well as a small part of) the greater good of marital togetherness and unity. I do find it hard to overcome hormones, but Jesus and the saints (particularly Mary) help me. I do not need to bring my mother into it because from my point of view it would damage our relationship.
I love your music by the way.
Thank you for your comment. Please read my response to you in the next posting entitled: "Ocean Time and Teen Response".
MJP
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