You're Teaching My Child What? (10 page)

I suggest that a “comprehensive and common sense” answer to the query would sound something like this:
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You could say something like:

Teens often misperceive what adults think and feel; make sure your daughter is certain about your values and expectations—these will impact her behavior. Yes—she may object vigorously, but studies show that high parental expectations are associated with postponing sex.
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If your daughter perceives her relationship with you is good, and your disapproval of teen sex is absolutely clear, it can have a powerful effect on her behavior. One study based on data from almost 8,000 mother-teen pairs
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found that the more liberal teens think their mothers' sexual opinions are, the more likely they are to have had sex and the more sexual partners they are likely to have.
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“Girls who reported closer relationships with their mothers were less likely to have had sexual intercourse. They were more likely to report a history of sexual intercourse when their mothers communicated frequently about sexual topics and when daughters perceived their mothers as being more approving of premarital sex. Daughters were less likely to be sexually active when their mothers reported more discussions related to the negative consequences of premarital sex and to delaying sexual intercourse for moral reasons.”
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,
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If you have religious beliefs about teen sex, mom, you must convey those to your daughter. Even more protective is your daughter's devoutness: religiousness in adolescence is associated not only with lower rates of teen sex, but also lower incidence of binge drinking, marijuana use, and cigarette smoking.
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Guilt is a powerful variable, in that if a teen believes teen sex is wrong, it limits their behavior significantly.
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Sex educators who are so big on removing sex from morality remove the guilt factor. But parents should not be afraid of it, as
long as the child understands it is the
timing
of sex, not sex itself, that is the issue. For every thing, there is a season.

Monitoring, knowing your daughter's whereabouts, activities, and friends, is critical. Know her friends—aside from you and her father, they have the greatest influence on her sexual decisions. Evidence is overwhelming that monitoring is protective, with benefits persisting into late adolescence.
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It should come across to her as evidence of your concern and care, not mistrust.

A perception of a low-level of monitoring is associated with sexual risk behaviors and, among low-income African American female teens, with getting pregnant, as well as gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Trichomonas infections.
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Your daughter should know it's important to you to know where she is, who she's with, and what she's doing.

Newsflash: More unsupervised time, with groups of peers or with a member of the opposite sex, is associated with sexual behavior.
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Do we really need studies to confirm the obvious? Mom, reduce your daughter's opportunities for sexual encounters. You may want to consider enrolling your daughter in a program for teens that encourages abstinence; some have a proven track record. For example, junior high and middle school-aged girls in the Best Friends program are six and a half times less likely to have sex compared to their peers in D.C. Public Schools .
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Dr. Cullins, your advice is contradicted by twenty-five years of research on the teen brain and on parenting. You instruct this mom to step back, but one study after the next tells her to step in. You say you respect your daughter's decisions; they say make your expectations clear and enforce them. You emphasize her relationship with a health provider, but it's her relationship with her mother and her father that's critical. Your approach is based on the notion that parents thwart a child's development—that if kids were left alone, free of our rules and expectations, they'd thrive. But the opposite is true.

Do you see how this racket works? The experts tell your daughter: If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you may be “ready.” They tell you: you may want her to wait, but be realistic: your daughter will probably have sex before she graduates from high school.

When you wince and groan, they reply: Trust us. We've studied adolescent sexuality, and understand your daughter's biological, psychological,
and social development. Sure, it's hard for you to see her growing up so fast. But it will be harder to see her pregnant. Your job, mom and dad—even if adolescent sexual behavior conflicts with your values—is to share that with her, and then make sure she knows about obtaining and using “protection.”
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We're not talking only condoms. In her book
Beyond the Big Talk: Every Parent's Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy Teens—From Middle School to High School and Beyond
, former SIECUS president Debra Haffner writes that teens need to know “that they cannot swallow ejaculate or have oral sex during menstruation. If these topics seem too embarrassing to discuss, consider how awkward it would be helping your teen with oral gonorrhea or, worse, HIV.”
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Uh . . . okay. . . thanks for sharing! And parents, take note of something else: if you can't stay cool and calm during these explicit talks, aside from the risk to your child of disease and pregnancy, the experts warn, you'll pay a hefty price: your child will go elsewhere for help. That's right, she'll turn to a friend, teacher, or online stranger with her questions and concerns, and it will be completely beyond your control. Well, that's what you get for foisting your hang-ups on your child's healthy sexual curiosity.

Wait ... what was that they were saying about scare tactics?

What should parents do? Have they no choice but to defer to the “experts”? Are they really the bumbling morons described by educators, the greatest obstacle to their child's healthy sexuality? Is there no
other option but to take a deep breath, squelch their gut feelings, whisper a prayer, and try to speak “openly” with their thirteen-year-old about “sex play” and its accompanying risks?

Yes, parents have a choice. They can reject this madness. They can listen to their gut feelings, because their intuition is correct: No way! This is too much, too soon! We know our daughter, and she's not the self-aware, perfectly rational, disciplined person your model assumes, who already knows who she is and what she wants. She's not a mini adult
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who can fully analyze a complex decision and consider the risks and consequences. The answer is not “information,” it's giving her a chance to grow up. Our obligation is to teach and guide and, yes, sometimes judge her, not to stand by and watch as she determines her own “readiness”! Thanks for your opinions, “experts,” but no thanks.

Parents can make that choice and share it with their child. They can calmly but firmly put up a big red light for their sons and daughters regarding sexual behavior during adolescence. And they can rest easy, because they—and not SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, or Advocates for Youth—have the up-to-date, medically-accurate facts on their side.

In September 2003, some of the nation's most accomplished developmental neuroscientists gathered in New York City. They met for two days to share their research in a field that did not exist a decade earlier. The conference title: “Adolescent Brain Development: A Period of Vulnerabilities and Opportunities.”
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Until the mid-1990s, the study of brain development focused on the fetus, infant, and toddler. By age two, the brain reaches close to 80 percent of its adult weight,
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and so those years were considered the critical periods of development; future maturation was considered
almost insignificant. But research was limited, because healthy children could not be ethically examined with x-rays or CT scans, techniques that use radiation.
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Investigators had to rely on animal studies and cadavers.
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