By Amy Cainfield
"YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! GET SOME! GET SOME! YEAH! SEX! SEX! SEX!" (Joe, Family Guy, television show.)
With quotes such as this readily within earshot with just a flick of the TV remote, how are adolescents and teens not pressured to find out what the fuss regarding sex is all about? From TV shows to advertisements, to peers, to the internet, it is in their faces, constantly.
Sexual innuendo in the advertising world, alone, is bountiful. Whether it is on TV, the radio or online, in a magazine or on a billboard, we are exposed to ads with sexual undertones all over the place. Teens see them, too, and have an innate curiosity about it – especially when the models they see are people who appear to be about their own age.
Merely driving down the road, one can clearly see billboards that are sexually suggestive. Take, for instance, the new Mini billboards: "The paint is still wet. You?"
Face it, people, it's right there, all around us, every single day, merely because, as advertisers would claim: Sex sells. However, there are things that you can do to keep your adolescent from buying into what our society sells so well.
So, do not think, even for one second, that you, as a parent, have been put into a full-nelson wrestling hold, because there are things you can do.
Aside from setting the parental controls on your home family computer, you can also talk to your children about which sites they frequently visit.
If they are members of social networking sites, then talk to them about the dangers of MySpace. Create your own profile and befriend your child. You will probably learn a lot about with whom they are spending most of their free time, and that will help keep you in the loop, and possibly save you from any unwanted surprises down the road.
Parents who make excuses like, "Oh, I can't keep up with the quickly changing technology," and ones who make comments such as, "My kid knows more about computers than I do," are parents who are giving up too easily.
When parents take a step to create their own profile and become "friends" with their son or daughter, it helps keep them connected to their child and the social ring in which they fall.
What many parents do not realize is that their children want their mothers and fathers to be very much a part of their everyday lives.
Make sure your child's television watching is restricted – especially late at night. If you ever find your mouth gaping at what you see and hear on the TV screen on prime time television, then that might leave your imagination soaring as to what comes on after you go to bed and your kid is still up watching TV. Set limits. You, the parent, have a right to do so.
Parents, you are more of an influence on your child's life than you think. Even if they seem like they do the opposite of what you want them to, when they are with a group of friends, all those talks you have had regarding sex and abstinence with your child will come rushing to the forefront of her mind, and she will most likely make the right decision.
Peer pressure can be an issue, but parent pressure holds more weight on decision-making in social settings. They look up to you. They trust you. They realize you have been around longer and know more about what's going on in the world than they do – even when they refuse to admit it.
The more you talk to your adolescents and teens about abstinence, the more likely they will be to practice it. Whether or not it is apparent to you, your teen is watching you and listening intently to your every word: never stop playing the positive role model, at any cost.
Amy Cainfield is an published author and a long time Internet Safety advocate and proponent of Parental Control Software that designed to help parents keep their children safe when they go online. She recommends all parents try PC Tattletale parental control softwa
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