The sex lives of adolescents escapes parents

Adults often find a roundabout way that their children spent their first reports.

a condom found in a pocket of jeans, an order for the missed pill between two books, an unambiguous message glimpsed on Facebook ... It's mostly in a roundabout way that parents discover that their child became a teenager, has a sex life. And often sooner than they had imagined.

 

"My daughter was 15 years old when I discovered by chance on the statement of the Social Security, she had gone, of itself, consult a gynecologist and had been prescribed the pill, says Virginia , 42, mother of two children aged 17 and 7 years. I fell naked. Suddenly I realized that my daughter was no longer a little girl, but already a young woman. It m has shaken up, "she continues.

"Parents always see their child as a little angel, protected sexual torment, says psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Serge Hefez, author of Psychology Antimanuel. You, me ... and love (Breal, 2009). Discovering he has a sex life makes them aware, not that he is a demon, but a small adult. This is a passage for parents. "

For mothers, the disorder is often stronger than for fathers. They are soon distanced themselves from the body of their child. "The mother carried the child in her womb, has long tight against it. The view from someone else is more brutal than the father, says Serge Hefez. In humans, the taboo incest being more present, it quickly banned the reports which could express a sensuality or sexuality. Towards her daughter but also her son, afraid to push it too much sentimentality. "

Child psychiatrist Marcel Rufo for the author of Untie me! Separate to grow (Anne Carrière, 2005), "we must distinguish what is known as the father of that mother knows. In general, the father acts as if he knew without looking further, while the mother is more attentive to all the signs. "

Another difference between the parents, the confrontation with her own fertility. In a woman, when her child starts to have an active sex life usually coincides with that where, because of his age - forty - she must renounce motherhood. Abandonment which sometimes suffering.

 Born around 1968, the parents of today's teenagers think they can talk freely about sex with their children. But when they attempt a conversation on the topic, they often find themselves facing a wall.

"The only thing I could do with my son is slip him a box of condoms this summer before he left on vacation, recalls Michel, forty, father of a 17 year old boy . When I wanted to talk a little, he immediately stopped and said: "Dad, heavy're there! I know all that! "" Girls have information and support, free, Family Planning. Boys are more left to themselves, although a "sex education" has theoretically place in college since 2003, with three hours per year. "Fathers do not want to imagine that their son may have difficulties in that area. They prefer to be convinced that there is no problem," Serge Hefez advance.

The average age of first intercourse has not changed in thirty years: 17 years and four months for males, 17 years and six months for girls, according to a study from the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) , 2007. In addition, a survey published in 2009 in the journal Pediatrics showed that 40% of boys and 46% of girls aged 13-17 years had, in the year, sex before their parents n 'have approached the subject with them. "That the dialogue on this subject is difficult, it is not worse, says Marcel Rufo. It's good that there is modesty. And it is also a way for children to come off the family." Sandrine, 49, mother of three children (26, 23 and 16), sexuality may be mentioned that the medical point of view. "The rest is of intimacy, she judge. I accompanied my daughters to the gynecologist for their first visit and then I'm me more mixed."

Head of adolescent psychiatry service of the Poitiers University Hospital (Vienna), Daniel Marcelli believes in So's the adolescence? (Bayard, 2009), the parents are not the best placed to address these issues. "It is difficult for them, as for children in the midst of puberty The excitement each other are too close to this. joined the incest taboo: the prohibition to share sex between different generations. "

From the age of 15 years (20% of this age have already had sex with penetration, according to the sociologist Hugues Lagrange), and although it is still a minor, a teenager has medical confidentiality. If it means nothing to them, her parents will not be informed about what is happening in the doctor's office. Parents are warned that if the young person so requests or if a medical or surgical act must be performed, which requires the consent of parents or guardians.