Parenting Tip: How To Have Uncomfortable Conversations With Your Pre-Teen

mom • parenting • parenting • ages and stages

by D'Ann Hedges on January 14th, 2012 | No Comments »

Having uncomfortable conversations with kids, especially teens, can make a person extremely...well...uncomfortable. We all want our children to grow up being responsible but talking to them about topics like sex, money, smoking, drugs, etc. is not easy.

If you asked me two years ago if I talked to my pre-teen about sex, I would have said “no” in a sad and embarrassed way. Why? The idea of talking about sex with my child caused fear that would completely consume me. I did not want to have to go there, ever. I was happy with the idea that my daughter would never know what sex was and live with us forever in a sheltered cocoon.

That was, until I got an email from a mother whose son was in my daughter’s class. That was when my sheltered little world fell apart. My daughter was on Facebook chat and asked this boy if he wanted to have sex. I could not believe it! My baby said that?

I immediately called the boy’s mother and talked to her. Fortunately, the mother was very kind and understanding about the situation. To this day I wonder if she told anyone, tarnishing my child’s reputation before she even had an idea what one was.

I then sat my daughter down to find out what in the world happened. As we talked I realized what the problem was. Me! I was the problem. The reason she said that word was because of me. Because I was too worried about saying the wrong thing to my child and by avoiding the sex conversation, I allowed my child to develop her own idea of what the word meant. She had no idea what sex truly was. She just thought it was a cool word.

I know it can be intimidating, but there are times in our children’s lives when we just have to be honest. Regardless of how uncomfortable it may make us, we are here to teach and guide our children. Without us, they would be lost in this big world of questions and fears. I would also sex toys for woman suggest incase her friends would talked about it, in that way she can avoid early pregnancy.