I think I feel more pregnant this week. It's amazing the impact that something the size of a grape can have on a woman's body & life.
My not-morning-sickness has kicked itself up a notch. For the most part, I feel fine until early afternoon and then start to get really nauseated. This feeling often continues through dinner, making trying to find something I can eat a real chore. With my last pregnancy, I had nausea pretty much all day but it was less severe than what I find myself facing this time. And then there are the random scents that set off the nausea (and occasional vomiting) at other times. That's always a (not) fun surprise because I often can't predict which smells will be a problem.
I'm still tired, though I'm less tired than I was with my last pregnancy. Some days I can actually manage without a nap. (During my previous pregnancy, I could not make it through a day without a 2 hour nap in the afternoon.) This time though, I realize that when I start to get tired, I also get more anxious and my nausea will increase. I've had more anxiety with this pregnancy than I would have expected. I tend to be a worrier in general and have dealt with some anxiety in the past. However, since I conceived I've been far more anxious about this pregnancy. I often find myself thinking that there is something wrong with me and the thoughts are more common when I'm tired. Studies indicate that anxiety can be a common thing for pregnant women. Pregnancy and/or parenting have a big effect and bring added stress to women's lives and the hormonal and physical changes can alter things too. This is something I'll be talking to my care provider about during my next appointment. I'm also considering prenatal massage, as I have read that it has been shown to be helpful in reducing anxiety. (As a note, for anyone considering massage during pregnancy, it is important to see bodywork practitioners who are trained and certified to work with women during pregnancy.)
Like many women who have some kind of ongoing health issue, I've found that pregnancy aggravates things that are already underlying. In my case, the result is fairly mild. I have eczema (a skin condition where I get dry, itchy patches). I've had it since I was very young and, in my case, it tends to be aggravated by major hormonal changes (puberty was a nightmare). It generally has a minimal impact on me now unless something else triggers an outbreak. However, pregnancy for me seems to be a key activator. I have to moisturize myself constantly in an attempt to prevent any problematic areas (which would then require treatment with prescription medications to control them).
Beyond that, it is still not obvious that I am pregnant unless I've told you. My clothes might be fitting a smidgen tighter, but I don't "look pregnant." With my first pregnancy, I wore all of my regular clothes until I was probably 3-4 months along. At that point, my pants were becoming uncomfortable (even though I still didn't look very pregnant at that point) and so I switched to a maternity pant. Anecdotally, I've heard from many other women that the change to maternity pants happens sooner in subsequent pregnancies that it does in the first. I'm not sure if this is due to abdominal muscles that are familiar with the stretching necessary for a pregnancy or if you just realize how darn comfortable those elastic waist pants are and want to start wearing them sooner. (Yes, I realize that pants with an elastic waist are not fashionable in general, but they might some of the most comfortable things in the world. Besides, they make plenty of fashionable maternity pants and skirts these days where you would not even realize they have elastic unless you saw it or somebody told you.) I don't know how long I'll stay in my regular pants, but they fit for now.
My partner and I told our families about our upcoming addition this week. Outside of our family and a few friends, nobody knows (except for all of you, of course). It's not obvious just from looking at me and I haven't felt the need to out myself to the world just yet. It is a personal decision about when to share the news with the world. Many women choose to wait until after they've reached 12 weeks (when the likelihood of miscarriage decreases). Others may wish to share the news right away. I'm not sure when I'll start telling people, but eventually it will feel right and I'll let the cat out of the bag!
There seems to be the almost universal belief among North American parents (I'm sure this is a phenomena found elsewhere as well, but I'm just talking about what I've personally seen) that their kids, whether these are theoretical future children or actual kids, and whether they have yet to reach their teen years or not, will hate or at the very least dislike them. Teenagers hate their parents: everyone knows that.
My mother has told me that when my sister and I were small, she used to say to my father that he had to take over primary parental duties once we hit our teen years. She's told me that she loved being a parent, and loved spending time with us, right from the get-go, but being surrounded by warnings of "wait until they become teenagers!" she always thought that would change when we got older.
Out for a Fall walk in 2008. We so obviously hate each other.
I suppose it's actually a very reasonable belief that your teens will dislike you: after all, most teens I know and have known do dislike their parents!
What isn't true, though, is that that dislike is inevitable.
The dreaded teenage years came in my family, and likely to my parents surprise, nothing horrible happened. I mean, problems came up in day to day life, for sure, but looking back, I actually think that in terms of parent-child relationships and issues over "discipline" type stuff the teen years were (and are, as my sister is still a teen) smoother than when we were younger. I attribute this to the fact that it was a constant progress over the years from more traditional parenting to more respectful parenting (which mirrored our transition from relaxed homeschoolers to unschoolers).
Though there are definitely unschooling parents/teens who don't have very good relationships with their teens/parents, it seems that the majority of unschoolers really and truly do. Which to me, is a wonderful thing to see.
I believe the reason for that is actually pretty simple.
When the subject of "teenage rebellion" comes up now, my mother is fond of saying "why would you rebel, since there wasn't really anything to rebel against?"
Now, I think there is an important distinction to be made here: some parents proudly brag about how their teens aren't "rebellious," and what they really mean is that their children are obedient to their parents wishes (or, possibly more likely, are simply very good at hiding the aspects of their life that their parents would disapprove of). When I say that most unschoolers I know, myself included, don't or didn't "rebel" against our parents in our teen years, I don't mean it's because we fit the perfect-child model of some narrow-minded authoritarian-parenting suburbanite.
While I've never been very big into alcohol or drugs, I definitely drank long before the legal drinking age (though admittedly the whole culture in my home province of Quebec is very different from the rest of North America, in that virtually everyone drinks at least some amount from the time they hit their teens, with the parents knowledge). My sister, who turns 18 (legal drinking age in Quebec) this summer, has been going to bars since she was 15 or 16, with my parents knowledge (again, very common practice in Montreal). Both my sister and I have been openly anti-state, anti-hierarchy, and anti-authority for years. I've dyed my hair unusual colours, shaved the sides of my head, and worn clothes throughout my teen years that plenty of parents I know would have disapproved of. Sometimes we stay out late into the night. We've been known to participate in Pagan religious rituals. We swear frequently. We hang out with people who are big into drugs. If all those things were listed entirely out of context, it would probably sound like we were the people that many parents warn their kids about (then again, for all I know, parents have warned their kids about us...)!
So why do we get along so well with our parents? It's pretty simple: control.
Or, more accurately, the lack of control.
Think of the things that most commonly cause friction between teens and their parents: breaking curfew, bad marks in school, skipping school, using drugs, subscribing to different religious and political views than their parents, disobeying parents...
Compare this to a respectful unschooling parent: no school, no marks, no curfews, no orders, and a belief that teens are entitled to their own beliefs.
I want to make it clear that being a respectful parent doesn't mean agreeing with or approving of everything your teen does: it just means accepting and not attempting to control what they do. Thus, a parent that's strongly anti-drugs of all types might share all their opinions on the issue with their teens, give them information on why they believe what they do, etc. Yet despite that, they wouldn't ground, punish, or shame their teen if they came home high. In a mutually respectful relationship, teens are far more likely to genuinely take their parents opinions into account when deciding what they want to do, but teens are still their own complete and autonomous people, and will make the choices they deem best for themselves in the end.
Parents in general, from the most to least mainstream out there, all seem to frequently express a wish that their children communicate with them and be honest with them. Yet what the more authoritarian and punitive parents seem oblivious too is that no one is going to be honest with someone else if they know that by being honest, they're opening themselves up to be yelled at, punished, shamed, or treated with anything less than respect. Those parents also don't seem to realize that good communication has to work both ways: parents can't expect their children to spill all the secrets of their lives, all their important thoughts and deeds, to someone who thinks their own personal life is none of their kids business.
I also want to make it clear that I don't, and didn't when I was still in my teens (having just turned 20 a couple of months ago, I still have trouble remembering I'm no longer a teen!), tell my parents everything. I'm my own person, with my own life, and some things stay private. Sometimes because it's something very personal, or a secret not mine to share, and sometimes it's because I know it would worry or upset them to know something. Yes, occasionally I keep things (and have kept things in the past) I know my parents would disapprove of away from them, not because of any fear that I would "get in trouble" or anything like that, but simply because I don't want them upset or worried about things they ultimately have no control over.
My (and my sister's) relationship with my parents is really good. We talk to each other about everything from how we've been feeling, what we've been doing, interesting links online or news stories, what our friends are up to. We don't stray away from subjects such as drug use and other illegal activity. I'll cheerfully announce that a friend is taking up graffiti, and Emi will call to say she's headed out to a bar after band practice, so expect her home late. I've never worried about coming home smelling like weed. And because of the relationship we have, my sister and I have never hesitated to get our parents help when we're worried about a friend doing hard drugs, and we'd never hesitate to call instead of driving home with someone who's drunk.
I'm incredibly grateful for the relationship I have with my parents, and that my parents are the people that they are.
So in conclusion, here are my very inexpert opinions on what makes a good parent-teen bond: respect, honesty, communication, and a lack of coercion and control.
Basically? Treating each other like full and complete human beings, with different desires, beliefs, aspirations, and experiences.
It's such a simple concept: don't be your teen's enforcer, be their partner. And if more parents acted this way? Well, then I think we'd start seeing a hell of a lot less of this "teen rebellion" thing!
Originally published at http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/
My 15 year old son has a first girlfriend who is a year older. My concern is that she lives with her dad only and quite often is home alone. My son has been there twice already and one time I made him leave because the dad was not home. I am besides myself about how to handle this. He said that he is not going to have sex with her but you know how that goes. I know what I was doing at 15. Do I make condoms available? But that would be condoning it. I will have a talk with the girl about not hanging at her house. They are always welcome at mine and I will try to speak to her dad about it.
I'm in an on again-off again type relationship with my "girlfriend." We get along and everything, but on some things we don't see eye to eye. We've had sex before, and that's kind of the problem. She keeps pressuring me into having sex! You don't really hear it this way with guys, but it's the truth. She knows what she wants, and she wants it now! It's not that I don't want to have sex with her, or that I don't LIKE having sex with her, but sometimes I just enjoy romance. Or just hanging out. Sex isn't everything. And another thing: she want's a baby! She's nineteen, and I'm eighteen. I've reminded her that neither of us drive or have jobs. I just graduated high school (at the time I was still IN school) but still, I can't change her mind. So I don't really know what to say. How can i get through to her that sex isn't everything, and that we're definitely not ready for a baby?
I'm 18, and I've been sexually active for about three years. I met my current boyfriend in August of 2010 and we've been inseparable since. He just celebrated his 21st birthday. My problem is, my mom seems to think I'm her angelic, virginal teenager. (I'm one of five kids) She doesn't know I'm dating or that I'm not a virgin. Before I go away to college, I'd like to come clean to her. I'm just not sure how to do that without shattering her image of me completely, though it seems inevitable. So, how do I begin to tell her?
My mom was a victim of incest as a girl and has used it to invalidate my emotions. I blame the incest, not my mom, but it still hurts. But I can't help but feel like I, as a man, am dirty to be sexual. I can't draw a line in my head between good sex and bad sex. I am a virgin because when I get close to sex, the girl will start reminding me of my mom or my sister. I'm afraid if I don't lose my virginity soon I will develop a sexual frustration that will eventually cause me to hurt someone. I know that I'm just a troubled, caring guy. But I can't help but hate myself sexually. I don't know what to do.
What do we know about teen parents? Take a moment to make a mental list (or, if you’re motivated to get out a pen and paper, I won’t stop you) of all the facts and statistics you’ve heard.
In case you’re coming up short, I’ll give you a few:
You can read more here or here or here or watch any episode of 16 and Pregnant that features Dr. Drew. He’ll usually cover most of these points before the hour is up – while interviewing young people who are actually parenting.
Beyond these “facts”, we hear plenty of other messages on what The Candie’s Foundation calls “the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy;” their print ads tell teens they won’t move out of their parents house if they have a teen pregnancy; they’ll be spending $10,000 a year on their baby; they’ll have to breastfeed every two hours or come up with money for formula. The Candie’s Foundation isn’t the only organization putting out these types of messages – most teen pregnancy prevention, sex education, or public health organizations presume that their audience will immediately understand that teen pregnancy is harmful to young people, their children, and their communities as a whole.
Even the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy says that teen pregnancy is:
...risky for all of those involved. Compared to women who delay childbearing, teen mothers are more likely to end up on welfare. The children of teen mothers are at significantly increased risk of low birthweight and prematurity, mental retardation, poverty, growing up without a father, welfare dependency, poor school performance, insufficient health care, inadequate parenting, and abuse and neglect. (From Halfway There: A Prescription for Continued Success in Preventing Teen Pregnancy)
And if the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy says it’s a huge problem, they must be right… right?
Well… not really. You might have heard the saying that "there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." When it comes to teen parents, the statistics’ metaphorical pants are definitely on fire. First, we have to recognize that the young women who become teen mothers are different from some other young women. Not radically different, not different in a way that means we can marginalize or demonize them, but different in that: a) they chose to have sexual relationships as a teenager (most of them – some pregnancies are the result of sexual abuses or assaults; b) they probably didn’t use birth control when they were having sex (maybe they didn’t learn about it, maybe they couldn’t access it, maybe they couldn’t afford it, maybe they wanted to get pregnant, or maybe they did use it and it failed, as all methods can); c) they chose not to have an abortion (again, presuming they made this choice themselves, and had affordable access to safe abortion if they had wanted one).
Of all the teenaged women in the country, which young women are most likely to meet all of these criteria? Demographically, we know that it’s women and girls who grew up in low-income communities that have the highest likelihood of becoming young mothers.
Why is this? As I said earlier, it takes money to avoid parenthood if you’ve decided to have sex: you have to be able to afford birth control (and/or abortion), and sometimes that can be really expensive. It also helps if you went to a good school with a comprehensive sex education program, and we know that schools in low-income communities rarely have the resources needed to give students the educations they deserve. (Surprisingly, not all teens know they can get a ton of free sex education here at Scarleteen – provided they can afford or access a computer.)
But there’s also something else, and that's the extent to which young people have big plans for themselves that will conflict with parenthood. Are you planning on going to college? For some young people, the answer is an immediate "Yes!" because their parents went to college, their older siblings went to college, all their friends are going, and between their family and financial aid, they will be able to afford a post-secondary education that will help them pursue their dreams and find a decent job. However, for some young people, the answer is "I don’t know" or an ambivalent shrug, or even a straightforward "no." Maybe no one in their family has gone to college, maybe their school doesn’t have a college counselor that can talk to them about the application process and financial aid, maybe they just know they can’t afford it or what it might be able to offer them. They see their parents working jobs that don’t require a college degree. They expect to have a mid- to low-paying job, because that’s the type of job everyone around them has.
Now imagine there are two 16 year-olds, one who knows she’s going to college – she’s got a whole plan mapped out, and she didn’t even have to map it out all by herself. That’s just what she expects because that’s what everyone she knows does, and that’s what her parents expect of her. Then there’s the other one, who doesn’t expect to go to college, but she does expect to work hard at a job so she can contribute some money to her parents. That’s just what she expects because that’s what everyone she knows does, and that’s what her parents expect of her.
Both young women want to be mothers one day. Both are having sex with a boyfriend.
The first young woman has that college plan, though – and having a baby would really get in the way. It’s really hard to go to college with a new baby, and she knows that. Plus, she doesn’t know anyone who had a baby in high school. Her parents would be mortified if she got pregnant. Having a baby now would change the trajectory of her life. It’s an unacceptable risk. One night, when her boyfriend’s condom breaks, she goes to the pharmacy and buys emergency contraception. She decides if she’s pregnant, she will have an abortion. She talks to her doctor about going on the birth control pill so that she won’t have to worry should the condom break in the future.
The second young woman has a different plan. She’s going to graduate high school and get a job in the preschool where she now works part-time, and maybe eventually become a teacher there. It’s an hourly wage job, and she knows most of the women who work there already have children. Her cousin was a teen mom, and her mother had her older brother when she was 17 years old. She knows teen moms work hard and pinch pennies, but she’s going to be doing that anyway. If she has a baby now, she can count on her parents’ begrudging acceptance, and she knows that her mother would help with babysitting. She doesn’t want to live with her parents forever, but she’s not planning on moving out when she turns 18, anyway. One night, when her boyfriend’s condom breaks, she decides to wait and see. She doesn’t know much about emergency contraception, and she doesn’t have $60 to spend on it anyway. She doesn’t think much about abortion – she doesn’t think she’d be comfortable with the idea, but since she doesn’t know if she’s pregnant yet, she won’t stress about that at the moment. It’s a risk she’s willing to take: she definitely wants to be a mother someday, and if she is pregnant now, she knows she’ll find a way to deal with it.
Not-so-surprise ending: A few weeks later, the first young woman breathes a sigh of relief when her period arrives on time. The second young woman takes a test, and the plus sign appears. She’s pregnant.
Now, don’t over generalize: if you’re having vaginal intercourse, there’s a chance you’ll get pregnant, even if your dad has a vault the size of Bill Gates’. And, of course young women in low-income communities have hopes and dreams for their future. But the material privilege that a person has, the likelihood that they feel they’ll be able to achieve their goals, and the examples provided by people in their community – each of these things contributes to the decisions that they’ll make, the risks that they’ll take, and the different paths they’ll choose when faced with the same dilemma. We can conclude one thing very clearly and concretely: low-income women are more likely to become young mothers than middle and upper-income women.
What does this have to do with all those statistics we hear about teen pregnancy? It means that when we compare teen mothers to all other mothers and say, "Hey! Look how badly they’re doing!" we’re not really being fair. A woman who grew up in poverty in the United States is likely to live in poverty as an adult, too (despite what we hear about The American Dream) – and poverty itself is a huge risk factor for many adverse outcomes, including the outcomes listed in those statistics at the top of this page. When we compare teen mothers to older mothers, we’re also almost always comparing poor or poorer mothers to mothers with more resources, and that’s a problem. So, let’s look at some better comparisons:
None of this means that being a teen parent isn’t really, truly, incredibly hard. But hey – all parenting is a challenging. Newborns need to be fed in the middle night no matter how old their mothers are. Toddlers need to be constantly chased around just as much if their mom is 37 or if their mom 19. Some teenagers might not be up to the task – some adults in their thirties or forties aren't either. Let’s not ridicule, stereotype or misrepresent young parents as a justification for preventing teen pregnancy!
So now you’re probably scratching your head and asking: why, then, should we prevent teen pregnancy? For that, I invite you to stay tuned.
Gretchen Sisson is the author of Finding a Way to Offer Something More: Reframing Teen Pregnancy Prevention. You can follow her on Twitter @gesisson.
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Depending on your view, the answer to that question might seem really obvious or very tricky and hazy.
This is a subject that's talked about all the time, however, when it is, there's often little to no clear definition about what healthy sexual development is. Many easy assumptions get made, and ideas about what's healthy for all people are often based in or around personal agendas, ideas and personal experiences of sexuality, rather than being based in broader viewpoints, truly informed and comprehensive ideas about all that human sexuality and development involves and real awareness of possible personal or cultural bias.
We think this question is very, very tricky and that the answers aren't at all obvious or easy: sexuality is incredibly complex, especially given its incredible diversity, not just among a global population, but even within any one person's lifetime. Our cultures also are often sexually unhealthy in many ways, and so ideas about healthy sexual development, deeply influenced by culture, are often flawed, incomplete or limited, and can sometimes present things as healthy which truly are not, but are so pervasive or so much a part of cultural frameworks that people assume they are or must be. So, what healthy sexual development is is hardly a simple question, nor a question we can answer casually or without a whole lot of deep thought and consideration, both ideally coming from multiple perspectives and kinds of expertise.
At a recent conference I was part of in London, Alan McKee presented a talk which included a piece published in the International Journal of Sexual Health (2010, 22(1), Healthy sexual development: a multidisciplinary framework for research, Alan McKee, Kath Albury, Michael Dunne, Sue Grieshaber, John Hartley, Catharine Lumby and Ben Mathews). As someone who's worked for many years in sexuality and sex education, and who worked in early child development for several years before that, I've heard "healthy sexual development" tossed around a lot, but have often felt dissatisfied with the way it was undefined or some of the things it has implied when people have used it. Often, critical pieces seem to be missing, personal agendas seem to be central and unrecognized, or the way it's defined hasn't been broadly inclusive, holistic or thoughtful.
What McKee and his colleagues determined to be the core parts of healthy sexual development had me jumping up and down in my seat with joy (literally: I may have disturbed my fellow attendees with my bouncing). It summed up the things we try to support, encourage and inform our users with and keep core at Scarleteen so well, and so much of what I think -- after many years of thinking hard about and working with these issues, and being fully and broadly immersed in them with a very diverse population -- truly is central to healthy sexual development.
Their work also makes it wonderfully clear that sex education and supporting healthy sexual development isn't just something that can or does happen in what we call sex education, but can -- and should! -- be present in and come from many different kinds of education, information and support. Not only do I think this list includes the key issues for the development of healthy sexuality for individuals, I think it's also an excellent framework for working towards cultures which are sexually healthier than most are and have been.
I'm delighted to have permission to excerpt and reprint this framework here. I believe the domains listed are benchmarks everyone can use whether we're providing sex education, parenting or mentoring, evaluating the health of our sexual interactions or relationships with others, or working on our own personal growth and well-being when it comes to our sexuality. I've included alternate ways of understanding the key points and also some links to get started with on our site in exploring ways of supporting these aspects of healthy sexuality at the end.
From the paper: "A consultative group was gathered consisting of seven Australian experts across a number of disciplines relating to children, development and sexuality. The group included a psychologist specialising in preventing child sexual abuse; an early childhood expert; a legal expert in children’s rights; a specialist in sexuality education; experts on sexual socialisation; and on the media’s impact on children’s development. The group commissioned literature reviews of the research on children’s sexuality across their disciplines; and worked together to develop a consensual definition of healthy sexual development that drew on the insights of their various disciplines."
"One key point emerged early in the discussions: this would be a holistic approach to healthy sexual development. In much of the literature in this area the sole concern is the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of child sexual abuse (see for example Haugaard & Emery, 1989; Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Ryan, 2000). The group agreed that preventing unwanted sexual encounters is a key element of healthy sexual element – but it is far from being sufficient for an understanding of the important elements in that development. There is more to healthy sexual development than simply preventing abuse. Important positive skills and understandings must be developed. We identified fifteen key domains which provide a multidisciplinary framework for understanding healthy sexual development:
Healthy sexual development takes place in a context in which children are protected from unwanted sexual activity (Haugaard & Emery, 1989; Sanderson, 2004). This is a fundamental point. Its complexity must also be acknowledged. Hence the second point is:
Healthy sexuality is not coercive (Wardle, 1998; Ryan, 2000; Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002; FPQ, 2006). And so children need to understand the nature and complexity of consent – not just their own, but also other people’s – in sexuality. They need to learn about the ethics of human relationships, and how to treat other people ethically.
In other words: Healthy sexual activity is only activity that is truly wanted by anyone and everyone directly involved in it. Consenting and acquiring consent, and the freedom to withhold or withdraw consent, always; knowing what consent really means and involves for everyone are key to healthy sexual development and to a healthy sexuality and sex life.
In healthy sexual development, children are provided with accurate information about how their bodies work. Research has shown that ‘[i]n the absence of adequate and systematic sex education, children invent their own explanations for biological and sexual processes often in the form of mythologies’ (Goldman & Goldman, 1982, p. 392).
In other words: This means things like accurate words for body parts, science and fact-based explanations of how bodies can or do function not just around sexual reproduction, but also around sex itself and the debunking of mythologies about bodies, sexuality and reproduction.
In healthy sexual development, children learn what is safe sexual practice. This is meant in the widest possible sense, including physical safety, safety from sexually transmitted diseases (Allen, 2005, p. 2), and safety to experiment.
In other words: It's vital to know about safer sex, preventing or reducing the risk of injury, illness and other harm, and how to explore sex and sexuality in ways which are known and shown as most likely to be physically and emotionally safe.
In healthy sexual development, children learn relationship skills more generally. This includes, but is not limited to, communication and assertiveness skills. Children learn to ask for what they want assertively in relationships generally. At an appropriate point this also includes sexual relationships (Impett et al, 2006).
In other words: Part of everyone's sexuality involves interpersonal relationships, whether that's about sexual relationships expressly, or any relationship in which someone's sexuality may be addressed. Learning what is and is not healthy in all relationships -- including family relationships, friendships, interactions with healthcare providers or people outside those spheres -- is a big part of learning what is healthy in sexual relationships.
Emerging from the previous point, in healthy sexual development children learn that they are in control of their own sexuality, and in control of who can take sexual pleasure from their bodies. They are confident in resisting peer pressure. They understand their rights. They learn to take responsibility for making their own decisions (SIECUS, 1995).
In other words: Sexual agency is about having and being afforded ownership of one's body and sexuality, not being externally controlled by others. This includes freedom from unwanted sexual activity and sexual coercion. Agency also means that we're the owners of our own actions and choices. With real agency, we are both held accountable and responsible for them and are allowed the liberty of having ownership for the choices we make.
Every researcher who has studied the healthy sexual development of children insists that children are naturally ‘curious’ about their bodies and about sex (Sanderson, 2004: 62). Studies over many decades have shown that they explore their bodies – including touching and sometimes masturbating their genitals – from birth (Levy, 1928; Ryan, 2000; Larsson & Svedin, 2002b); they ask questions about sex at the same time as they begin to ask questions about other aspects of society (Hattendorf, 1932; Larsson & Svedin, 2002); and they play ‘sex games’ like doctors and nurses with other children from an early age (Isaacs, 1933; Lamb & Coakley, 1993; Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002; Larsson & Svedin, 2002b; Sandnabba et al, 2003). Research has shown that this behaviour is not only normal, it is healthy and has no harmful effect on later sexual development (Kilpatrick, 1992; Greenwald & Leitenberg, 1989; Leitenberg et al, 1989; Okami et al, 1998; Larsson & Svedin, 2002b). Similarly, learning about sexuality does not stop at the point where (or if) sexual intercourse begins. Adults continue to learn about their sexuality throughout their lives, improving their knowledge of and attitudes towards their sex lives.
In other words: Being curious about sexuality and wanting to explore it needs to be understood and presented as healthy and acceptable. Exploring sexuality in healthy ways is also learning about sexuality, and that learning, and feeling open to always learn more, is part of our sexual well-being throughout all of life.
There is a necessary element of risk in all learning. This is also true of sexual learning (Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002, p. 3). In healthy development, children develop agency in order to facilitate resilience, so that bad sexual experiences are opportunities for learning rather than being destructive.
In other words: Sometimes sex can suck, doesn't meet our expectations or things happen to us or by us sexually which are painful or traumatic. In order to be as healthy as we can, we need resilience so that we can deal with and/or heal from disappointment, embarrassment, harm or trauma, rather than being unable to recover or move forward in our lives and sexualities.
Healthy sexual development requires open communication between adults and children, in both directions. As noted above, this means that children are provided with age-appropriate information about sex (SIECUS, 1995), and particularly that they are given honest answers to any questions they may ask (Chrisman & Couchenor, 2002). There is absolute agreement in the literature that this is important for preventing sexual abuse (Krafchick & Biringen, 2002, p. 59; Sanderson, 2004, p. 55), development of a healthy attitude towards their own bodies and sexuality (Chrisman & Couchenour, 2002, p. 14; Impett et al, 2005), and preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs when they do become sexually active (Lindberg et al, 2008). On the other hand, in healthy situations, children feel comfortable in coming to adults with problems, concerns or issues they may have about their bodies or what is happening to them.
In other words: Healthy sexuality doesn't and can't often happen in a culture or environment of silence. Talking about sex and sexuality openly and honestly is part of developing healthy sexuality and healthy sexual development, both with peers and and with parents, guardians and other adults, and also part of reducing the risk of sexual harms or negative outcomes.
This is a key distinction between healthy and unhealthy sexual development. Healthy sexual development is ‘fun’, playful and lighthearted (Okami et al, 1998, p. 364). Unhealthy sexual development is aggressive, coercive or joyless (Sanderson, 2004: 79).
In other words: It's not healthy for anyone to be pushed into or away from sexual development: both should happen at a pace that's right for each individual. As well, ideally sexual development is something that others support as being okay, something people experiencing it can feel relaxed about and even have fun with and enjoy.
In healthy sexual development children are supported in developing a positive attitude towards their own sexual identity (Impett et al, 2006); and a ‘positive body self concept’ (Okami et al, 1998, p. 363).
In other words: Part of sexual well-being is accepting who we are, uniquely, and feeling accepted in who we are, even if and when our sexuality, sexual identity, embodiment or the ways we are sexual does not conform to someone else's ideas of what our sexualities should be or what our bodies should feel, look or function like.
Children learn to understand that it is acceptable for sexuality to be pleasurable in healthy development (SIECUS, 1995; WHO, 2002, p. 5). It is not shameful to enjoy it. It is a desirable outcome that when they become adults they will have to option of enjoying satisfying and high quality sexual relationships should they choose to do so (Okami et al, 1998, pp. 361, 365).
In other words: Sex isn't just about making babies, something people only do because someone else wants or expects them to or something to exchange in order to get something else. It's also about pleasure. In fact, when sex (of any kind, including masturbation) is truly wanted and consensual and when it occurs in healthy social contexts where everyone involved has agency, it's most often mostly about pleasure. Seeking or experiencing sexual pleasure isn't something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about: it can be a healthy, happy part of life.
In healthy development, children learn social and parental values around sexuality to enable them to make informed decisions about their own sexuality in relation to them. These vary greatly (WHO, 2006: 6). Research shows that parental values around sexuality range from extremely conservative to extremely liberal (Okami et al, 1998), and that judgments about what is appropriate sexual behaviour in children differ dramatically in different societies (Aries, 1962; Higonnet, 1998; Jenkins, 1998).
In other words: Whether we wind up agreeing with them or not, it's important we understand the values and ethics of our world and our closest communities, including those within our families. When we are aware of and understand those well, we can inform our choices with them and also work out what our own values are, whether they're the same or different from the values of our parents or our culture.
xiv. Awareness of public/private boundaries.
As a particular subset of values, children learn how the public/private distinction works in their culture as part of healthy sexual development. This allows them to manage their own privacy, understand public behaviour, and how to negotiate the boundaries between the two (Larsson & Svedin, 2002; Sanderson, 2004, p. 60).
In other words: A healthy sexuality involves boundaries, including boundaries between public and private expressions of sexuality, even though all people don't have the same boundaries. As well, how we present our sexuality and put it into action often is different when it's public and when it's private, both in our individual experiences and when it comes to how we are treated by others. To make sound choices about sexual behavior and expression, choices which include keeping ourselves and others safe, we need to be aware of the differences between what's public and what's private.
xv. Competence in mediated sexuality.
In healthy sexual development, children will develop skills in accessing, understanding, critiquing and creating mediated representations of sexuality in verbal, visual and performance media (Higonnet, 1998; Hartley & Lumby 2003; Buckingham & Bragg, 2004; Ward et al, 2006; Mazzarella & Pecora, 2007; Lafo, 2008).
In other words: Everyone knows that there is (as there always has been) sex and sexuality in all kinds of media. The media is a big presence in our world, especially over the last couple decades, so it's important that we learn how to make sense of and ask questions about what we see, hear or read in it so that we can have a sense of its impact on us and others and know the difference between what the media shows us and how it presents it and how different sexuality can be and often is in real life.
Want to find out about some of those key domains right here at Scarleteen? The following articles are some good places to get started:
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