To parents of teenagers

Of course, what form 'The Talk' will take in the future is anyone's guess. Times change.....

My sons are lovely lads, happily married or engaged, in good jobs, university graduates etc, but we DID have a similar talk. I told them about safe sex, about what stops the pill working and why they should always use a condom, and about being responsible. Their Dad told them to respect women and never treat them like objects. He also said that if they did get a girl pregnant they would take their share of responsibility for the child.

This was not because we thought for an instant that they would do anything bad to a girl - they were brought up to be kind and responsible: it was just that we wanted them to face up to the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be.

Anyway, they never got into any of that sort of trouble, but that's beside the point. The Talk us necessary.

It is over 20 years since my son was a teenager and while I did not have the conversation in the way it was discussed in this article, DS was most explicitly clearly taught to respect women. It was something that came up in many conversations I had with him.

But he had grown up in a family where everybody was treated with respect and demeaning remarks about other people or groups of people were not part of family discourse. His group of friends came from families with the same values as ours.

I think it is much more difficult now. I was discussing with DS and DiL this weekend the problems of teaching their two children, GS, aged 3 and GD, aged 6 proper respect and values in a world where it is almost impossible to protect them from online pornography. However careful you are at home, you have no control on what they see on other people's computers/mobile phones and tablets.

I did have that conversation, just in an attempt to prevent him getting into any situation where his actions could end up with him in court. He is gentle and kind and couteous but he had the talk anyway partly because I wanted him to know that he should tell any friends of his who spoke of girls like that to shut up. I have always believed that girls should dress as they please.

Yes. I think that's a different thing altogether penstemmon.

j08 sadly it is real assault but as you say it needs more than a talk from mum to sort that out.

Peer pressure is a strong pull, I agree, but I don't believe it is all that matters. I firmly believe in the modelling process that can be woven into the fabric of an extended family from the very beginning.

.....and further to my post...... to include brothers, uncles, cousins grandfathers etc.

Indeed, but peer pressure is very potent and is all that matters to a young person.

I'm agree with your posts JO8.
As an addition, it's also about modelling behaviour from other male members of the extended family.
No good mum having a talk with her sons, if dad is enjoying page 3 in the sun or whatever newspaper that's in.

If ten year old boys are involved in real sexual assault, not just normal experimenting, then there is, of course, something very wrong in the family and intervention would be necessary.

Absolutely Penstemmon

if children, from being tiny,are taught about respectful behaviour to others then it won't be a big talk but just a building on what they already know!

But a talk that doesn't imply that they are thought of as possible perpetrators Greatnan

j08 I think a lot of dads as well as mums need to have that conversation! We all know delightful young men and older ones too who do respect girls and women but there are far too many out there who see girls a trophy /object etc otherwise there would not be the issues we read about all too often about male to female violence and abuse.

Jingle that was in response to your post of 17:32.

I am quite sure that every mother thinks this talk cannot apply to her son. Yet so many boys, some as young as ten, sexually assault girls. Whose sons are they? Some parents are deluding themselves. All boys need 'the talk', no matter how lovely their mothers think they are.

I've always found the positive approach better, encouraging my sons to value their female friends.
Had I approached this with 'Don't do/say anything to hurt your girl friends', they would have been horrified that by implication I may have thought them capable of such behaviour!
I'm with you there Jingle

If boys are very young, they should n' t have I-phones. And any other screens would, of course, have parental controls on.

No. They might look at porn. Well, of course they do. But that is nothing to do with their actions.

I think that boys are under some very pernicious influences now. Grans on here might not have felt the need to have such a conversation with their sons, but times have changed.

Boys now have access to porn on their iphones and from a miriaqd of other sources, and it is often regarded as cool to be looking at these things.

Mums and Dads need to counter this with the sort of moral compass that is so much needed.

Sad but true.

I will shut up now.

And I just know my daughter will never have to have it with her boys.

Something must have gone badly wrong with the whole family and parenting situation if anyone feels the needs to have that conversation with their offspring.

Well, "these creepy men", as she puts it, might be her sons but they sure as hell are n' t mine! My son would never treat a woman badly. He is a loving, caring person, and I have never had to have such a conversation with him.