by Rasmus Dane

Created on: February 28, 2008   Last Updated: March 02, 2008

Are we overprotecting our teenagers?

As a parent I keep running into the problem of what society and my peers dictates that my children should or should no be exposed to. There are too many unfortunate teens and children in this world, that live in situations, where they first hand every day get exposed to violence, sex, drugs and alcohol in their homes and surroundings.

Then there are the teens that we parents protect and often prevent from even hearing and learning about such things. I have met teenagers who never watch the news, because their parents think it is too violent. I have meet parents that think, that the amount of teenage pregnancies in The US is appalling, but at the same time is for banning books from the school library, because there is "sexual content". Are we helping our teenagers or are we setting them up for a reality shock later in life.

We pride our self of being a nation of well educated people and we preach the importance of education to our children every day. Then why do we avoid teaching our kids about the most fundamental things that every one of them will have to face one day. If we introduced our teenagers to alcohol in an appropriate and controlled manner, wouldn't we avoid the problems a lot of our teenagers go through, when they first start college? How many students struggle or even fail their first year in college, because they suddenly have the freedom to party. This also means a lot of them try alcohol for the first time and they are completely unable to control it. Had they been allowed a glass of vine with dinner or a beer watching football on TV, would they not have been better prepared.

The always controversial subject of sex! A lot of parents think that teaching about sex, is the same thing as encouraging our teens to go out and have sex. When we teach our teens about drugs, we don't encourage them to try. When we teach about war and weapons, we don't encourage them to go out and kill. If sex was not such a taboo subject our kids would know all about sexual transmitted diseases and how to protect themselves against it as well as pregnancies. We should teach our teens that sex is a wonderful thing, but also the importance of waiting until the time is right. Perhaps this would prevent some from jumping into the backseat and yet another teenage pregnancy. We can not stop the hormones and whether we like it or not some will never wait until the right time, but perhaps they would remember to protect themselves.

We need to teach them not only about sex and alcohol, but about the kind of violence they may encounter, harassment in school, depression, stress, the list is endless. Last but not least we need to teach them that it is okay to talk about these things.

I believe it is our responsibility as parents to prepare our children for life outside our own 4 walls. All though, we don't always agree with what goes on out there, we need to teach our children the reality of life, in order for them to be prepared and able to make the right choices.

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