ASSIGNMENT # 8

TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT SEX

Write a one- to two-page speech which you would give to a thirteen-year-old about sex. Include a discussion of the following questions:

1. What is menstruation?
2. What are nocturnal emissions?
3. What is an orgasm?
4. How do you know when you are ready to have sex?
5. How do you know when you are in love?
6. Everyone else seems to be growing breasts, having their period and I'm not, is there something wrong with me?
7. Every other guy in my class has grown a foot taller in the last year or so and I am still under five feet tall. Am I going to be a dwarf?
8. What exactly happens in puberty? Does everyone grow pubic hair? Does it hurt when your breasts grow?
9. I had sex with my boyfriend four times and I didn't get pregnant. Does that mean I am sterile?
10. Other information you think that an adolescent should have.

Do NOT wimp out by just writing "I will answer any questions they have." Try to anticipate what questions they have so you have an answer ready.

Also, just so you are prepared, think about this question... What are you going to tell your children when they ask about YOUR sex life, e.g., did YOU wait until you were married before having sex, etc?

You have three options:
A) You can tell them the truth. For some of you, who are just pure as the newly fallen snow, that presents no difficulty. Other people will admit that they had a less than blameless youth but tell their children that they do not want them making the same mistakes. (This does not often meet with nearly as good a reception as you might expect. Many teenagers argue that they, too, need to make some mistakes.)
B) You can lie through your teeth and PRETEND that they were a product of the second virgin birth in two thousand years.
C) You can tell them it is none of their business.

In case you are interested, I tend to go for a combination of A and C. I do point out to my children that, when I was younger, AIDS did not exist, so what we had to worry about was getting pregnant, while they have to worry about getting dead.

Go back to the previous page, having decided that you will check out some of those links after all.

Email me your answer

Go on to the next page on adolescent identity.