There are many different thoughts and ideas pertaining to sex.   A lot of times, these are quite alarming, especially when people have differing opinions and there are some staggering statistics that exist.  Consider that approximately 1 million teenage girls become pregnant each year.  Consider that almost as many teenage boys are the fathers of said pregnant girl’s babies.  This makes a staggering number of sexually active children around the world. 

While many parents try to convince themselves that their child is not sexually active how can you really know?  What should you do, supply your child with condoms, or just turn your head and hope they have done right.  Whatever is a parent supposed to do?  How can you assure yourself that your child will not come home and announce that they are pregnant?  How will you prepare your child to be a possible parent, even while they are still a child themselves?  What is really the best way to help prevent pregnancy?

All of these questions race through the mind of the parents of teenagers each and every day.  But why?  Shouldn’t these questions come to mind when a child is still young, and more likely to openly listen to what a parent says?  How many parents of teenagers have ever tried talking to their teenager only to have a door slammed in their face, or else you are in competition for attention against an MP3player of the phone.  This is not the time to be trying to stress such important life lessons.

Instead of waiting for the teenage years, it is always a good idea to start talking to children about sex and various aspects of sex including the difference of the genders.  Children as young as 2-3 can start learning some of the milder lessons associated with different genders and how to appropriately behave around the opposite sex.   Waiting until your son or daughter is a teenager with a complete mind of his or her own is never the right time to be starting. 

You must realize that teenagers are unlikely to ever fully listen to their parents; however, younger children are much more impressionable and more likely to listen and absorb the information that their parents give them.  To make this easiest to handle, it is always best to give your children the knowledge they need to make safe and mature decisions early on in life, so that they are well armed with the information they need to make the decisions that we as parents should be proud of.

 In the next few articles, I am going to be covering how you can really talk to children about sex at the various ages and stages of childhood development.  Please feel free to take this information and adapt it to your own personal situation with your child so that they are armed with the information they need to grow up happy, healthy, and well adjusted.  However, remember as a parent, one of the biggest things you can do to change the outcome of your child’s perceptions is simply by having a conversation with them without seeming judgmental.  This will open the doors to a good two-way flow of communication.