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Is there any good way to broach The Talk? Fumbling through a euphemism-filled speech about the facts of life can range from uncomfortable to downright unbearable—for both parent and child. But it can also cause bouts of parental self-doubt and anxiety. How young is too young to explain reproduction? Will talking about sex encourage teens to have it? "Parents are desperate for advice," says Mark Schuster, MD, PhD, chief of General Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston. "I get pulled aside in the clinic, at schools,at the park. Even other physicians sheepishly ask what to say to their own kids."
Anne, a Cambridge mother of 21- and 14-year old girls, was flying blind when it came to educating daughters about sexual health. "In our generation, our parents never told us anything at all," she says. "So I wanted to take the opposite approach and be as open as possible from the start." Anne's attitude is in synch with modern schools of thought that don't recommend having one big sit-down. Instead, according to experts like Schuster, there should be many talks, which should start when kids are still in diapers. Schuster tells parents how in his book, Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask).
"When little kids ask where babies come from and parents answer, "You're too young to ask such questions,' or "Go ask your mom,' and then mom never answers, kids learn that they shouldn't go to their parents with such questions," says Schuster. "Instead, they seek out answers from peers and, eventually, the Internet. By the time those kids become adolescents, it doesn't even occur to them that their parents might have something useful to say about sex." In order to build open communication—key to fostering a child's natural, healthy sexual development—he recommends parents start by honestly answering kids' questions. Simple, short answers are usually all that younger kids need. "If the question is really surprising, ask why they are asking and what they think the answer is," he says. So if your heart skipped a beat when your 5-year-old asked what sex is, ask where she heard the word: It may be that a teacher asked everyone to say what sex they were—a boy or a girl—and that your explanation about body parts and what goes where can wait for another day.
But even if parents have done due diligence when their kids were young by being candid and encouraging them to ask questions, they may still be at a loss as the teenage years approach and conversations move from theoretical into the realm of reality. According to Schuster, this is when it's most important to make it clear that sex is something that can always be discussed. To help parents learn how to tackle these conversations—and how to keep their teenagers from running screaming out of the room—Schuster conducted an eight-week training program for parents to attend during their lunch hours at work.
After the initial awkwardness subsided, most parents in the program were only too eager to learn conversation strategies and practiced talking with other parents about everything from contraception, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases to more complex topics like healthy relationships and emotional responsibility. They learned how to address two key points: sexual ethics (the expectation that their teen's sexual behavior be respectful and consensual) and protection. Parents also practiced fighting the urge to deliver a lecture. "Talks shouldn't be a list of do's and dont's," Schuster says. "It's better to let adolescents learn to express what they think they should do; then parents can share their own perspective." This helps teens learn to make their own decisions. "If the parent always tells the child what to do, then the kid doesn't learn how to think for himself," he says. "Parents need to remember they aren't going to be in the backseat when their child decides whether to have sex or insist on using contraception."
A tip they learned is asking open-ended questions: "How do you feel about the boy you like?" "Do you know any kids at school who are pregnant?" A similar tactic is asking the child what people might feel in certain situations—for example, if a girl her age is being asked to do something she doesn't want to do. "This helps children identify their own feelings without becoming defensive about their own relationships," says Schuster. Another skill he urged parents to cultivate is recognizing conversation starters in everyday situations. "If you're all watching a Friends rerun and Rachel and Monica are fighting over the last condom, what a great opportunity to talk to your kids about contraception," he says.
Parents in Schuster's study put their new skills to use, and, if they were lucky, even convinced their kids to role-play with them. Parents and teens thought up lines that someone might use to convince them to have sex against their wishes, and then invented some responses. "This gets everyone laughing and talking about serious topics in a fun way," he says. "It also gives the teen an opportunity to get input from the parent on strategies for handling tough situations."
Schuster is currently analyzing the program's results, and preliminary findings are encouraging. "We'd teach skills one week, and parents would come back the next week bubbling over with excitement that they'd talked with their teen about relationships, love or sex, and—this was the best part—their teen had actually engaged in a real conversation with them," he says. Their teens, who were also surveyed, agreed that the talks were beneficial. Follow-up surveys showed significant effects: Just one week after the program, 18 percent of parents had graduated to the point of reviewing the steps of using a condom.
Of course, sometimes teenagers will stymie the most proactive parents with "uh-huh" responses or shrieks of "I don't want to talk about this!" In these cases, Schuster recommends parents talk casually about sex-related topics within earshot of their children, so even if they won't participate, the resistant teens will still hear the message. "Kids may pretend that they aren't listening, but they're usually absorbing every word," he says. Failing that, parents may want to try Anne's fall-back approach. "We usually have great communication and my daughters are pretty open," she says. "But sometimes I do have these conversations while we're driving somewhere together," she says. "That way, we don't have to worry about eye contact—and I have them trapped in a moving car."
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