This may be something of an eye opener for those parents who think it is other folks’ kids who are having sex and not their own. A study shows that parents who think this way are in error.
Parents interviewed were seen as reluctant to think about their own children being sexually desiring, while they viewed other kids (peers of their own children) as being highly sexual; even “sexually predatory”. The fact that 435,436 births resulted among teens aged 15 to 19 and 6,396 among kids aged 10 to 14, in 2006 shows how erroneous such a presumption is.
It is this holier than thou attitude that many parents adopt that seek to shift the responsibility to others when there are consequences of sexual activity to be dealt with (my child was led astray or was pushed into it etc.).
41 mothers and 6 fathers were asked questions about how they feel about speaking to their teens on matters of sex and what they thought of teen sexuality. Parents tended to view their daughters as immature and believed that their kids were virgins because they were told so by their children.
Yes parents would naturally view their children as being young and innocent and not old enough to be “thinking of those things”. This would be a misguided notion though, and one that parents would be wise to correct.
Source: MSNBC
