When your teens ask, how honest are you?

[Anonymous]

Interesting. Because I do smoke pot and I do drink, neither to excess. Alcohol has never been hidden since for us its largely tied to food and entertaining more than just slamming back and many as possible everytime. But the weed they have never seen. I'm sure this will change within 1 generation or so as legalization spreads. But I grew up with it being illegal so that I cant get used to. I'm at the point of basically begging them to try to wait until after HS to really "start" any of that more than a sip or drag. Then teaching them the harm to bingeing and too much regular use for most everyone.

[Anonymous]

I am age-appropriate honest. And I have been thrown some doozies over the years, which frankly means my kid trusts me to answer.

What is death?
What's rape?
Have you ever been in an abusive relationship?
(Fill in the blanks) drugs?
(Fill in the blanks) relationships?
Why did you do those things? Why did such and such happen?

He (16) recently asked me about a particularly awful period of my own adolescence that is still incredibly difficult to talk about. In the car. My answer was this: "If you really want to know, I'll tell you as much as you want to hear. But I can't do it in snippets, OK? It's really hard for me to talk about." To his immense credit, he understood and respected that.

[Anonymous]

My 12 year old is asking me about my sex life. And I refuse to go there. For example, Mom, do you and Dad have oral sex?

I tell him it can be part of a healthy sex life but my personal sex life is off limits. It creeps me out too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old is asking me about my sex life. And I refuse to go there. For example, Mom, do you and Dad have oral sex?

I tell him it can be part of a healthy sex life but my personal sex life is off limits. It creeps me out too much.

That's an honest answer, PP. Nothing wrong with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old is asking me about my sex life. And I refuse to go there. For example, Mom, do you and Dad have oral sex?

I tell him it can be part of a healthy sex life but my personal sex life is off limits. It creeps me out too much.

Except that oral sex isn't always a healthy thing if your partner isn't clean. You can catch a virus that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old is asking me about my sex life. And I refuse to go there. For example, Mom, do you and Dad have oral sex?

I tell him it can be part of a healthy sex life but my personal sex life is off limits. It creeps me out too much.

Except that oral sex isn't always a healthy thing if your partner isn't clean. You can catch a virus that way.

Specifically, oral sex can give you mouth and throat cancer. Beware.

[Anonymous]

I never asked my parents these questions. Ever. Am I the only one?

I'm close to 40 and I don't think it was commonplace among kids my age when we were growing up to ask our parents these kinds of personal questions. Having the sex talk is one thing but we didn't ask if our parents had done this or that sexually, or what drugs they did.

[Anonymous]

I’m almost completely honest with my 16 year old. I don’t tell her I tried acid once, but she knows I smoked pot.

I am brutally honest about what I saw and learned. I have told her many times to avoid people involved in heavy drugs. I told her the story of my friend holding his best friend as he died. He got stabbed while selling heroin.

We’ve had quite a few frank conversations about addiction, sexual assault, overdoses, domestic violence, and how to handle being a witness or party to these things.