Explicit sexual descriptions in a notebook ...

[SuZir]

Not to get totally Occupational Therapist (OT), but for those of you saying we need to start talking to our kids about sex early (and I whole-heartedly agree, by the way), exactly when?! My difficult child 1 (F) is 10 and difficult child 2 (M) is 8. I've gently tried to broach the topic with-difficult child 1 and it freaks her out and she wants no part of it. I bought her those American Girl books about puberty, etc.... I wanted to read them with-her. Wasn't happening, so I gave them to her to read herself.

Well, with difficult child we started when he was two and easy child was on the way. Very basic things about where the babies come. Used some books etc. From that on answering questions and at times bringing up the topic when there was something on tv etc. Also talked about different kinds of families (including what being gay means) early on. When they were ten they had human biology at school covering also reproduction and all the body parts and their functions. They also had health education about puberty the same time. We had talked about puberty also before that and also corrected lots of misinformation he had picked from school yard and locker rooms. Had few books about the topic for him at the same time. difficult child was late to have puberty so also talked about his concerns about that, when his team mates started to have certain changes and he stayed a little boy (didn't help that he was also the youngest of his teams most of the time.) During middle school they had lots of sex education at school (I think hidden agenda on our sex education is bore the kids to death and hope that that hinders the practical experiments. I mean, when you have your sixth graded quiz of the year about early symptoms of syphilis, how to start a conversation, when you want to break up with your girl- or boyfriend, what to keep in mind when online dating or what heavy petting means or when you are, once again, playing with bananas and condoms in class following school nurse's directions, it does loose some of an excitement) and also reproduction and human sexuality in biology very thoroughly. At home we talked little bit of safe sex, but considering all school teaching we focused more the emotional side of dating, how to be a good boyfriend etc.

Because difficult child is three years older than easy child, easy child got the part we talked at home mostly earlier. Either same time difficult child or those dad-son-talks later, but still younger than difficult child. Of course easy child developed somewhat earlier than difficult child. In fact while chronological age difference is three years, right now their biological age difference is less than a year if that. difficult child is about two years or bit more late and easy child quite average so at this point they both are biologically in same place with growth plates just closing and getting from growing height to growing muscle.

With difficult child 1 you may already be little late, if she is approaching or has started her puberty, like she likely is. They are much less open to parents ideas of the topic after that. So often during puberty the books and good television documents work better, because they may be little embarrassed about the whole thing. Talking about feelings and relationships goes often better. Good way to do that is to watch together tween and teen tv dramas that very often have a lot of these topics and use them as conversations starters. With your difficult child 2 you should start conversations now, if you haven't already.

 

[HaoZi]

IT, if she's not ready yet, wait until either her body forces the questions (when development really starts, but before her first period) or they start teaching it at school, and then broach the subject again. When she comes from her first sex ed class, ask her gently if she has any questions she was too embarrassed to ask in class.

Terry, if you can't find that notebook, I hope you can remember enough to give them back exact quotes so they know you've read it. That should embarrass them enough, just knowing you've read it.

 

[TerryJ2]

husband found it. We're keeping it until our therapy session on Tuesday. Today was easy child's grad party and we didn't want a blowup. Sigh.

 

[BusynMember]

Terry, I know this doesn't cancel out the notebook and what you found written there, but it reminded me of what I found when I was cleaning out my then 12 year old sons room (Scott and 35 shared a room and had bunk beds). I got on my hands and knees figuring I probably had to sweep under the bottom bed and found myself staring at about a hundred Playboy Magazines. I'm sure my jaw dropped.

I wasn't really that angry as I know teen boys like to look, but I had to pretend I was upset so I confiscated the magazines and confronted the boys after school. They made all sorts of claims of how they got them, but, in the end, were told I don't want that **** in my house. Their father did not read that stuff.

Then (my guilty secret) before me and my bestie headed out to toss the mags into a dumpster, she and I had a blast going through them and reading the articles

I actually think your son is at quite a normal age to be exploring his sexuality. But, again, you do not have to allow displays of "moving under a blanket", Playboy mags, or porn in your house. It is YOUR house and you decide what is acceptable for him to have and how to behave under your roof. But I wouldn't worry too much. He's sexteen. Isn't seventeen the peak age for hormes in males? I guess then it goes down from there...tee hee. Big plus...they were dressed!!!!

You have my sympathy. Couldn't have been fun to witness girlfriend wiggling under the blanket.

 

[DammitJanet]

I think my family must have acted a lot like suzir's. We pretty much just had open discussions about sexuality and body parts from the time the boys could speak. There is a 5 year span from the first one to the last one so the oldest kinda asked how his younger brother was coming and we sorta had to explain that in age appropriate terms.

We are also semi nudists around the house. My kids ran around the house nude for years and they saw me naked for years. It never failed that they wanted to have the most important talks the moment I was in the bathtub. In fact, I would bet if I went right now and ran a bath both boys would arrive from out of state! LOL. They still will walk around me naked and wouldnt bat an eye if they saw me nude. Probably a good thing if they have to change my diapers one day!

But from that they learned what body parts where. There was no big fascination with boobs or bottoms. By about age 7/8 they had a working knowledge that mommy's and daddy's made baby's using female parts and male parts and boobs feed baby's sometimes. As they grew older they learned more. They learned from each other and from their father. Lord some of the things they learned from their father...lol. Lets just say they had very close and indepth talks! We are still a very close family though. When my son sent me to get all gussied up for Mother's Day one of the things he asked me was if I was still able to have sex because he wanted me to look pretty for his dad so maybe we would "couchie coo" and stop fighting for a night or two...lmao.

Maybe we are just strange. Dunno.

 

[HaoZi]

I don't find it too strange Janet. The only reason I wear more clothes at home these days is because I never know when Storm is going to drag a friend home LOL. I frikkin hate wearing clothes.

 

[DammitJanet]

Haozi....its one of the things that I find so awfully invading of my safe space in my home. I cant be me and feel normal in my own home. Im used to getting up in the middle of the night in just a tee shirt and going into the kitchen to get some drink if I want to and suddenly I have to get fully dressed because I find him sitting there watching TV!

 

[TerryJ2]

So, we went to therapy.
Yesterday, I apparently agreed that difficult child's girlfriend could ride along to NILD, and then to therapy. I hate it when she does that, because I feel like we can never be alone, in addition to which, she's just sitting there in the waiting room all the time. She does her homework, and plays with-her phone or ipad or whatever, but it's like they're attached at the hip.

We hadn't discussed the notebook or therapist appointment at that point, so I didn't pursue the transportation issue further.

I called the therapist today to give him a heads-up, and mentioned that D would be in the waiting room, and that difficult child might even want her to come in to discuss the notebook issue.
The therapist said no, it wouldn't work, plus it would be a conflict of interest.
Fine by me.
New plan: I would take difficult child to NILD, and then to the therapist, meet husband there, and afterward we could picture up the girlfriend and take her to our house for tacos.
If she wasn't too embarrassed to see us again.

I called the girlfriend's mom, T, and spoke with-her briefly, and she was alarmed and angry with-her daughter, and I asked if she could text her daughter and come up with-a reason for her to take the bus instead of going to the therapist with-us. I also asked if she could hold off telling her daughter anything until we finished at the therapist, knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to hold her tongue. She said fine.

On the way to pick up difficult child, he sent me a long text, complaining that there was no good reason for D to take the bus, and I had promised they could go together, plus, it was their 8 mo anniversary (they have to celebrate their anniv every mo). I ignored the text.
I got to school, and difficult child and his girlfriend were there, together.
T called and I told her that her daughter was in the car. "I'll pick her up at the dr's ofc," T said, exasperated. (These kids do NOT want to listen to us.)

difficult child yelled, "What did you tell her that for?"
"What was I supposed to do, lie and tell her that D was lying on the ground behind some bushes or something? It's her daughter and she deserves to know that she's in my car."

difficult child refused to go to class, yelling his head off at me that I had changed plans (never mind that he ignored the change).
I couldn't tell if his girlfriend was trying to get him to shut up because she was embarrassed, or if she agreed with-him.

He finally cooled off and went to class. Then we drove to the dr ofc, and D sat in the car and waited for her mom to pick her up.

The therapist didn't beat around the bush. The notebook was open on his desk.
"You are aware of what this is?"
"Yeah," difficult child said, glancing at the notebook. He thought it was a regular school notebook.
The dr slid it closer. "You are aware of what this is? And that your parents have seen it?"

difficult child turned bright red, and he started tapping his foot and getting angry, but he stayed calm enough.
"That's just stuff we were planning to do. We haven't done any of that."


therapist said that it was quite indicative of sexual activity.
"Yeah, so? It's for the future. It's like a fantasy thing. We haven't done anything."
"So, you're scaring us," I said.

"We're not doing anything," he said.
"She's 14. You're 16."
"We want to get married someday."
"That's nice. Let's stick to the topic of the notebook and what you're doing now. And by the way, we were cleaning for a party with-30 people and you are darned lucky we found it and not the guests!"
He shrugged his shoulders.

Long story short, his main concern wasn't that we were concerned that they might be having sex. (Or at least, sex with-their clothes on.) It was that his girlfriend's mother was dysfunctional and when she found out, she would verbally abuse her.
He did not want us to tell her.

Well, yesterday I went to a different therapist. She has a son who has Asperger's. She said that we needed to talk about this issue asap, and that even though husband wanted to talk about anxiety issues, that's a lifelong process, and we should deal with-the most pressing issues first. She also encouraged me to tell the mom, because she had a right to know, and it shouldn't look like we were going behind her back.
Sigh. A no-win situation. I was glad she said that, and also glad that this therapist said that this was a pressing issue and that the other anxiety issues could wait.

I told difficult child that I understood his concern, but our concern was that he not engage in sex right now, that he plan ahead, and that we supervise and chaperone him. And that he and his girlfriend were too young. We all agreed that this whole thing was normal and natural, but that we didn't need any babies right now.

He got very angry but held it in remarkably well (maybe the lithium is working, or the fact that he exploded earlier got it out of his system) and finally at the end of the session, he said, "Does that mean we can't go to a movie alone, or walk from the school to the park alone?"
Ah, the joys of literalism. We all chuckled and I said, "No, it's not 19th c China. You can still go to the movies and can still walk outside."
husband chimed in and you could see difficult child relax.


husband took difficult child home (picking up girlfriend on the way) so I drove to her mom's house and had a brief chat. Mom did tell her daughter that she'd heard about the notebook, and D said the same thing difficult child did: "That's for the future."
Arrgh.
Well, at least they had the same story.

T said she told her daughter that she loved her but that this was getting out of hand and she was going to be more closely supervised. 14 is too young. (I took that to mean too young for birth control, too.)

No condoms were given out today. But I'm still planning on it. I think this mtng was only a delay tactic. And I know that husband and T will not buy anything.

 

[DammitJanet]

What is your husband waiting for with his birds and the bees talk? Your sons wedding? He is 16 and should have had this talk long ago. Preferably when puberty first hit. I mean the very first little signs and I am very sure they have happened by now if he is cuddling under a blanket with a girl!!!!

 

[TerryJ2]

I know. That's husband's MO.

 

[TerryJ2]

by the way, they both sat at the kitchen table and ate tacos last night. girlfriend acted normal. difficult child was peeved and wanted to eat as quickly as possible. Still, they were amazingly normal, all things considered.

 

[HaoZi]

Oh honey, if you knew the things I did in the park alone with boys when I was 14, 15... you wouldn't let them go alone.

 

[TerryJ2]

Lol! He's allergic to grass.

 

[HaoZi]

Who said anything about using the grass? There are benches, swings, slides, tunnels... depends on the park. And I had a lot of imagination.

 

[TerryJ2]

Ohhhhhhhkay, you win ... I take it one day at a time.