Help! I need to talk to my teenager about sex

Telling your young children about the birds and bees is the easy part. The real challenge, for many parents, comes several years later, when it’s time to have a serious conversation about contraception. Suddenly you find yourself dealing with a young adult who may or may not already be sexually active, and wondering what advice to give to them.

If you discuss contraceptive choices, will that be interpreted as your tacit consent to pursuing a sexual relationship, perhaps too soon? What are the current contraceptive options, and which are best for teenagers to use? And at what age can a GP prescribe contraception to a young person?

You might have as many unanswered questions as your son or daughter, and you could be feeling just as awkward and embarrassed. But with one-third of young people having sex before the legal age of consent, which is 17 in the State and 16 in Northern Ireland, it is vital to have the discussion sooner rather than later.

Don't panic if you think your teenager is already having sex, says Anita Ghafoor-Butt of the Irish Family Planning Association, which runs an eight-week programme, Speakeasy, designed to provide parents with the information, skills and confidence they need to talk to their children about relationships, sexuality and keeping themselves safe.

“We would advocate for mums and dads to begin having conversations about healthy relationships and the idea of consent from the age of five,” says Ghafoor-Butt. “But lots of parents come to us when their tweens are starting to develop and they haven’t had that conversation yet.

“Sometimes they come in already dealing with a crisis situation, looking for the best way to manage it. Parents come from all kinds of different backgrounds and they have often had negative experiences around sex education themselves; sometimes they don’t have the knowledge, or their confidence may be quite low.

“Our aim is to enable them, so that they can be the experts.”

Rita O’Reilly, chief executive of Parentline, the national confidential helpline for parents and guardians, says many callers fear that simply by discussing contraception, they are giving their son or daughter a licence to go ahead and have sex. Yet at the same time they want the young person to be safe and protected.

“In terms of talking to teenagers, the first thing would be to emphasise that most teenagers don’t have sex for the first time until they are 17,” suggests Helen Deely, head of the Crisis Pregnancy Programme, a point also made by Dr Mark Murphy of the Irish College of General Practitioners: “Very often kids talk up sex, but research shows that there are [far fewer] kids doing it than say they are. So a young person doesn’t have to feel like the last virgin in the class.”

“Research finds that young people who wait until they are over 17 before they have sex for the first time are less likely to say that they regret it and more likely to say that it happened at the right time for them,” says Deely.

“Today’s teenagers are much more responsible when it comes to safer sex, with more than 90 per cent using contraception if they do have sex. This is one of the main reasons why there has been a 60 per cent decline in the teenage pregnancy rate over the past 13 years.”

Sensible

A 2010 report on the health behaviour of school-age children found that most sexually active young people took the belt-and-braces option of using both the contraceptive pill and condoms, protecting them from pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections.

“Very sensible,” says Deely, “as it can take time to get used to using condoms and to taking a pill every day.”

Like Ghafoor-Butt, Deely says any discussion about contraception should be couched in terms of the relationship with the other person: “It is much nicer to have sex for the first time with someone you know well and really like or love. Most teenagers want to have a positive first experience and parents can encourage teenagers to think like that.”

O’Reilly underlines the importance of rights, when talking to young people: the right to protect yourself, the right to say no, the right to enjoy yourself, and the right to determine with whom and when to have sex. “The big message for parents is ‘be prepared’,” says O’Reilly. “Get informed, and then you’ll be ready when the time comes. A good place to have this kind of talk is in the car: you both know it’s a finite journey and you’re not looking at each other, which can help.”

Once you and your teenager have had the necessary conversation and they’re either sexually active or planning to be, the next step – especially in the case of girls wanting to explore contraceptive choices – may be to approach the family GP.

“We like to see shared decision-making between the parent, the GP and the adolescent,” says Murphy. “Crisis pregnancies do occur, and it’s imperative we prevent that from happening. There’s a wide variety of options, but Larc – long-acting reversible contraception [including the contraceptive implant or contraceptive injections] – is recommended as the best, safest and most efficacious choice.”

What happens, though, if your daughter is under 17, below the age of consent, but wants to access contraception?

“If someone is, say, 16 and three months, they can’t legally have sex,” says Murphy. “However, they can legally take contraception [without the permission of a parent] because they have capacity in the eyes of the law.” Any younger than 16, though, and prescribers find themselves operating in an increasingly grey area, which puts them in a vulnerable position under the law.

Responsibility

Rather than reacting with dismay if your child asks you for help with contraception, many experts say you should welcome it as a testament both to the strength of the parent/child relationship and to the maturity and responsibility of the young person.

“I applaud any child who approaches a parent for support and advice,” says Ghafoor-Butt. “It shows that the parent is trusted, and that says a lot about communication in the family.”

Kyla [not her real name], who is 18, plucked up the courage to speak to her mum two months after her 16th birthday. She started a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, who was also 16.

“We were using condoms but I was worried that wasn’t safe enough,” she says. “I thought about it a lot, and I felt really awkward about talking to Mum about it. There’s pride, as well – you don’t want to admit you don’t know what to do. But it really helps to talk and get guidance, and it also means you don’t have to feel you’re sneaking around behind your mum’s back.” Kyla ended up going to the family GP and getting a contraceptive implant, which will stay in place for three years.

And if that upfront chat about contraception still feels difficult to begin, Ghafoor-Butt suggests getting hold of an information leaflet and slipping it under your child’s bedroom door. After that, it might be easier than you think.

For more information, see ifpa.ie; parentline.ie; b4udecide.ie; or tel Parentline on 1890-927277 or 01-8733500