The Right To Say No Is The Right To Say Yes
Responsible parenting in the 21st century? I’m sure it’s not easy. But I’ve got a lot of respect for this mother who wrote Why I Want My Teenage Daughter To Have Sex. At least she’s trying!
From the article:
I heard a radio call-in show recently in which a 17-year-old girl wanted support to stay over at her boyfriend’s house even though her parents forbade it. The almost unanimous response sounded like this: “When you are financially independent then you can sleep wherever you want. Until then you are under you parents’ roof and your parents’ rules.”
I understood the logic and I support parents to act in alignment with their values. As a psychotherapist, Parenting Coach and mother of two teen daughters, however, I had a very different response.
We give our children–and especially our daughters–a double message. We tell them that their bodies are their own and that they get to say “no” when it doesn’t feel right, but we don’t tell them that they also gets to say “yes” when it does feel right.
When our kids have a love interest, crush or sexual feelings we may want to protect them from their natural impulses and desires–and especially from the perils and complications they might cause. What if we just supported them instead?
For example, here is the statement I want my daughter to hear, loud and clear: Your body belongs to you, and you can do anything with it that you want. You get to say “no” when you don’t want to do something, and you get to say “yes” when you do.
Indeed.
Similar Sex Blogging:
