Talking about sexuality with your children is not always an easy task for parents. In the program Sans rendez-vous on Europe 1, sexologist and psychiatrist Catherine Blanc answers the question of a listener who wonders if confinement is the right time to discuss this subject with her adolescents.
Corinne's question
"I have two teenagers: one 13 years old and the other 16 years old who has a girlfriend. I think that like any mom I worry, but I would like to know if it was not necessary to benefit from confinement for talk about sex education with them. What do you think? "
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Catherine Blanc's response
"This is not the right time, in the sense that adolescents are in the discovery of their impulse, in the discovery of planned sexuality or in the first emotions. For them, being locked up with parents is a potential source worries, since the adolescent's fear is that it may concern the parent, since his first impulse in love was for his parents. The fear is that sexuality is carried on them. it’s not a good time. However, it’s a time when we meet, when we have more time to have lunch together, to chat, maybe watch movies and discuss them. On these occasions, we can ask ourselves questions , we can open the debate and there it becomes something interesting. But it is not because we are confined that we are going to release the to-do list .
At 13 and 16 years old, however, they discover sexuality ...
They discover it, they envisage it by all means, with the internet today. Whether they are curious or coerced by friends and girlfriends. It is true that it is in their environment. Not always with their emotional availability. It is sometimes a little constrained by the mass. So there is no question of parents participating in this. But as obviously the group of boyfriends and girlfriends is missing, we can perhaps talk about lovers. But parents shouldn't be too heavy saying, 'So? Didn't you tell me, do you have a lover? ' or 'Do you have a lover?'
As a parent, how do you overcome modesty when talking to children about sexuality?
There, I warn not to invade our children. But there is no question that this alert should be understood as the need for extreme modesty. For the parent too, it is complicated to share with the child the subjects of sexuality because it is already talking about one's own sexuality, even if we don't talk about it directly. Approaching the subject reveals that you have sexuality yourself. So always open the door asking, 'Do you have any questions?'. Films can be a good support, because there are stories that we can debate without talking about us.
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Is it time to tell them about sexually transmitted diseases?
I believe the boat is full. I believe that we have sufficiently fueled the anxiety and fear of the other and the contagion that the other represents. The question is rather to obviously evoke the question of individual desire, his desire for himself and the legitimacy of this desire and the time to give him so that the adolescent's peace will be made when he enters the field. of sexuality. The more a teenager is at peace, the less he does anything. I don't think it is by scaring people that we help them protect themselves. On the contrary, one arouses for some the confinement and the inhibition and for the others the "not even afraid" and the posture self-destructive and bravado which, it, is dangerous.
The epidemic is also scary for teens ...
Of course, there will be kisses to exchange, saliva to exchange ... We know very well that saliva contains many bacteria and fortunately because they are part of our defense system. But the question is obviously not to talk about bacteria, contamination, contagion ...