Your teen ready to date? Don’t panic!

When you know your teen is sexually active
Some teens couple up and become two peas in a pod. You may want to pretend that they’re not having sex, but burying your head in the sand is not a good tactic. I’m definitely against your allowing them to sleep together overnight in one of your bedrooms. You don’t have to be a doormat. But you’re not going to be able to watch them every minute of the day and night, and so you have to face the reality that you’re not going to be able to put an end to their sex life. And once you’ve faced that fact, you then have to decide whether you want to become grandparents while your teen is just that, a teen.

If used properly, condoms are relatively safe with regard to protecting from an unintended pregnancy, but they’re not as safe as the pill. So if you have a daughter who you are fairly sure is sexually active, then you might want to offer her a visit to the gynecologist to go on the pill. Now she might turn you down because while she and her boyfriend may be engaging in sexual behavior, they haven’t graduated to intercourse yet. In that situation, there is a small risk that because you held up the possibility of her going on the pill that she’ll see that as a green light to have intercourse. But I do believe it is a small risk. In the first place, if she’s held back up to this point, she has many reasons for doing so, not just because she was afraid of what you would think. And in your speech, you’re going to reinforce those reasons. Remember, you’re not giving her the green light, but instead reminding her of the serious consequences that sex can have. But you’re also treating her as an adult, so that instead of having sex out of rebellion, she’ll only do it when she’s ready. And if you’ve raised a sensible girl, if she’s sure that she’s ready, then she probably is.

Some parents decide not to leave anything to chance, and so they place condoms in a drawer in the house and say to their teens that if they’re needed, to just use them, that no one will be keeping count. If you’re pretty sure that your teen is sexually active, then that’s not a bad idea. If something happens, you’re going to pay a price in any case, in worries if nothing else, so rather than just ignore the reality of the situation, taking charge of providing contraception makes a lot of sense.

When is a teen ready?
Many people ask me at what age someone should start having sex, and I always have to tell them that there is no set age. When it comes to driving, voting, or drinking, your status does switch from one day to the next when you hit that milestone birthday, but those are artificial restrictions. When it comes to having the maturity to enter a sexual relationship, for some, though admittedly few, 14 is the right age, while there are others who’ve reached their 21st birthday and are still not mature enough or have not found the right partner, which is an important deciding factor, at least in my book.

You have to remember that throughout most of mankind’s history, it was common for young people to get married in their early to midteens. If our children don’t have the maturity at that age, it’s not because they’re not physically ready but rather because we’ve held them back emotionally. We, as a society, have decided to treat teens as not yet having reached adulthood because we want them to stay in school and they require parental support to do so. But just because we’ve done everything possible to make sure that a 14-year-old is not an adult doesn’t mean that some 14-year-olds haven’t managed to reach adulthood despite our best efforts. They may not pick up their dirty clothes off the floor because they know that you’ll do it for them, but if they were put in a responsible position, they’d be able to take care of themselves. And having sex, assuming you can prevent a pregnancy, is the least important of the many adult responsibilities. In many, many countries, 14-year-olds do hold down full-time jobs and do support families. So it’s not that a 14-year-old is innately incapable of acting like an adult but rather that we force a lengthened childhood upon them. And therefore under these artificial conditions, clearly the vast majority of 14-year-olds are not ready to have sex. But some are, and many more reach that state as each year passes.

If you have a pot of boiling water and try to push the top down further and further into the pot, you’re going to have a harder and harder time, and if you let go for even a second that top is going to burst off because of the added pressure you’ve caused. It’s the same with a teenager. The more pressure you exert, the greater the internal temperature of the teen, and at some point there can be an explosion, or in the case of some teens, that can be a daily occurrence. But you have to understand that you are creating this artificial pressurized situation. You’re intentionally keeping them from becoming a full-fledged adult. Given the needs of a long education in our modern society, I’m not saying that you’re necessarily wrong. All I’m trying to get you to do is acknowledge that your teen is not naturally a child and so the conflict over many issues, including sex, is one to be navigated. There is no one answer that will fit every teen. Some teens couldn’t hold down a job flipping hamburgers at McDonalds while others could manage a Fortune 500 company. Some teens are so ready to have sex that there’s no stopping them, while others don’t really mind not having the responsibility of having a steady boyfriend or girlfriend. So you have to adjust your parenting to fit your teen, and you may not always be happy with the outcome. For example, being in a steady relationship is likely to have a negative effect on a teen’s grades in school simply because being in a relationship takes a lot of time, which takes away from the time to study. But if a teen has formed a relationship, there’s nothing you can do to change that, and if you did manage to keep them apart, your teen’s grades would probably worsen rather than get better. So you have to learn to adapt to the realities of your teen. You can guide teens, but only so far. If you’re constantly butting heads, then you have to look carefully at the overall situation and try to figure out how to reduce the pressure so that there are fewer explosions. You have to recognize that you are not in full control, that your teen is slowly breaking free, and you have to choose your battles carefully. Sometimes sex is an appropriate battleground and sometimes it’s not. And if it appears that you’re not going to be able to enforce celibacy on your teen, then you have to do whatever is necessary so that at least your teen is having sex as safely as possible, which may mean making that appointment with the gynecologist to get your daughter a prescription for the pill.

Parents of sons have a slightly easier time because it is not your child who can get pregnant. But your teen can certainly cause a pregnancy, and so you can’t be left off the hook. You have to talk to your son to make certain that he’s being careful. Exactly what you say may depend on your son. If he’s generally responsible, then you don’t have to be as repetitive about your warnings as when if he’s a daredevil.

As I said in the chapter on peer pressure, if your teen wants to be treated more like an adult because he or she is in a serious relationship, now is the time to give your teen more responsibility, not less. When a teen gets a driver's license, you might sit her down and say, “In exchange for using the family car, I’m going to ask you to drive around your younger siblings from time to time, and get a part-time job to pay for gas.” In this situation you might say, “If you’re old enough to be in a serious relationship, then twice a week I expect you to prepare dinner or do the family shopping.” What the responsibility will be will depend on many factors, such as which responsibilities the teen already has, but my point is that you want to underline the fact that with the perks of adulthood come the duties.

What effect might this have? Throughout history, the privilege of having sex was tied to marriage, which of course carried with it tons of responsibilities. When you decouple sex and responsibilities, young people look at it as a form of recreation and you get many of the problems we see, like the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases. So it’s important to try to make that connection in their minds, that with adulthood come certain freedoms but also certain responsibilities.

It’s important to set up the consequences ahead of time. I don’t think it’s enough to tell your teen that she’s spending too much time with her boyfriend. Instead you have to say, “I think you’re spending too much time with your boyfriend and it’s probably going to affect your grades negatively; and if that happens, I’m going to set up much stricter limits.” Then it’s up to her. Either she maintains her grades or you’ll force her to spend more time at home studying. Because she’s going to have a strong motivation to keep those grades up, so that she can see her boyfriend, you might be pleasantly surprised. And by giving her plenty of notice — and by plenty I don’t just mean in advance, but to repeat this warning often — if her grades go down, she’ll probably limit how much she rebels when you clamp down. Of course, you can’t be weak. You have to follow through with what you said you’d do, or otherwise you’ll lose all control.

Studying is clearly the most important activity in which your teen could be engaging, but the problem is that neither one of you will see the results for quite some time, until the next report card period. So I think the conditions you set up have to be a mixture of both schoolwork and household chores. You can tell immediately if the dishwasher’s been emptied, the garbage thrown out, the shopping done, or a sibling driven to piano lessons. And then if the goal isn’t met, you can dole out a relatively mild restriction as far as dating is concerned. It may take a few nights spent at home for your teen to understand that you’re serious, but eventually that message will sink in. And that type of immediate feedback, that shirking responsibilities means losing the privilege of dating for at least a short time, could go a long way toward getting her to work a little harder at her schoolwork.

I hate him/her
What happens if you can’t stand the person your teen is dating? The first thing you have to do is look at this young person objectively. Does he or she represent some danger to your child? Or is it just that this person gets on your nerves but isn’t all that bad? If it’s the latter, then there’s not much you can do. Luckily, you don’t have to spend that much time with this person, though sometimes that might not be true if the couple spend most of their time together at your house. (Which may not be such a bad thing since you get to supervise them when they’re under your roof.) But the more serious situation is when the person your teen is dating clearly is not someone you want associated with your child.

What happens in many instances is that the parent tries to break the couple up, the teen resists, and then parent and child are at each other’s throats. Even if the teen had some doubts about the relationship, rather than give in to parental authority, the teen is going to do everything possible to hold on to the relationship. So declaring war on your teen is just not a good tactic, both because it probably won’t work and because it will close you off from your child, which could lead to other negative consequences. For example, if your son knows that you don’t like the girl he’s dating because you think she’s not right for him, but you don’t go overboard trying to get them apart, he might resist having sex with her to prove that the relationship is not based on something as lowly as just sex, but that he really loves and respects this girl. But if you try everything possible to split them up, then they’ll cleave together, and it may be more likely that they’ll end up having sex.

Video   Dr. Ruth on teens, sex Sept. 17: TODAY’s Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford talk to Dr. Ruth Westheimer about her new book “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Teens and Sex Today.” Today show

If you find yourself faced with such a situation, your first job, before you say a word, is to fully assess the situation. If you try to break the twosome up, there is going to be all-out war between you and your teen. I’m not saying that you may not want to assert all the authority you can muster in order to break up the couple, but don’t do it without thinking through all the possible consequences because while you can’t foretell the outcome, you do want to have an idea of what might happen. For example, what if because of the pressure you put on them, the couple decides to elope? Then you’d be worse off than if you hadn’t done anything. But even without going to such extremes, if you become enemies with your child over this, you can end up losing control more than exercising control. So you have to tread carefully. For example, if you think your daughter’s boyfriend is bad news, you could ask one of her best friends what she thinks about him. If he’s really bad news, and if she’s really a true friend, she’ll tell you at least part of the truth. Maybe her assessment will be, “Yes, he has a lot of tattoos but he’s really a nice kid” or else she’ll tell you that he not only uses drugs, but sells them. By doing your homework, you’ll have a better understanding of the situation and can then plan out the best course of action. But if you let your emotions take over, then the outcome is going to be less certain.

If you believe that your daughter has been brought up to know the difference between right and wrong, plus she is a bright and capable child, then in the end you have to have faith that your daughter is going to do the right thing. If you are attacking her, however, you’re weakening her. If she’s undergoing an internal battle between her conscience and her attraction for her boyfriend, and then she also is confronted with a battle against her parents, that might tip her toward making the wrong decision. If she’s feeling overwhelmed, then it will be harder to be completely rational. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t speak your piece. As a parent you have a duty to give advice to your child if you think she’s making a mistake. Whatever her immediate reaction, she will take that advice back with her and think about it and use it to make her decisions. But if you step over the line and go from advice giver to authoritarian, then she may not weigh it carefully but could simply dismiss it because of its source, parents who are clearly “against” her. Remember, we may treat teens as children, but they are young adults, and part of the growing-up process is breaking away from the authority of their parents. It’s better for all parties if this is a gradual process, but if you push her up against a wall, then it can happen all of a sudden. And if it seems more important at the time for her to assert herself in order not to be treated as a child, then she might make the wrong move, because instead of making a conscious decision, it will be an emotional lunge for freedom. So while it’s okay to push, you have to understand that there is a limit so that you don’t push her over the edge.

Excerpted from “Dr. Ruth's Guide to Teens and Sex Today.” Copyright (c) 2008 by Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Reprinted with permission from Teachers College Press, Columbia University.

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