Sexuality

Her parents were never open with her about sexuality, so Sanita Blake, a single mother from Inglewood, wants to be frank with her son, 14, and daughter, 12. She just hasn’t done it yet.

On the one hand, she thinks her kids aren’t ready. On the other, when she drops her son off at school every day, she says, “I see the young girls, and I’m like, whoa!” One day she thinks, “These are just babies.” The next, she thinks, “No, they’re not.”

Adding to her ambivalence is her fear that they might think she’s promiscuous if she sounds too knowledgeable.

Daughter Adrienne doesn’t quite understand why adults get so embarrassed. “I’m comfortable talking about it,” she says. “It’s just life.”

Experts consulted for the parents’ guide being introduced this week agreed that the old-fashioned idea of “The Talk” on the eve of a child’s first date is useless. By the time they reach adolescence, children’s attitudes about sex are already shaped, they said.

Talking about sex should be a continuous conversation beginning with teaching toddlers correct terms for all body parts and continuing to adulthood. By 13, they said, kids should know the basics and understand that sexual relationships bring pleasure as well as responsibility, that abstinence is a desirable alternative for young people, that teen pregnancy and parenting often bring a loss of personal freedom and emotional and financial burdens.

Talking about sex won’t make your child want to have sex, as some people think. Some studies show that kids who feel they can talk to their parents openly about sex engage in less sexual activity or high-risk behavior than those who have learned not to broach the subject.

Parents needn’t feel pressured to answer immediately when their 8-year-old blurts out, “What’s an erection?” in the grocery store. It’s fine to say, “That’s a good question, but it’s something we need to talk about in private when we get home.”