Parents must open up to children

Irish parents are going to have to ‘man up’, cast their embarrassment aside and open up conversations about pornography with their children according to Parentline.

Thu, 10 Oct, 2013 - 01:00

Claire O'Sullivan

And these age-appropriate conversations may have to start as young as aged 10 as children are being exposed to sexualisation at increasingly young ages, says Parentline CEO, Rita O’Reilly.

”It will be the most difficult the first time you broach this subject, but after that it will get easier. It’s very hard for any parent, mother or father, to see their 10-year-old child suddenly as being sexualised. Parents would rather think he or she is thinking about Santy and hasn’t an idea about this.”

You have to remember, O’Reilly says, Irish parents do not talk about porn with their children and many could not countenance discussing it with their partner or friends, never mind their child.

A failure to talk about porn is a lacuna in Irish parenting skills.

“Very definitely many Irish parents will do anything to avoid this conversation. Some even can’t cope with a general birds and bee conversation, never mind pornography. I think with young girls you’ve no choice: sex education has to start in the home at a certain age because of the onset of periods, but with boys it can unfortunately be delayed more, but shouldn’t as they are exposed to so much online. They need to be taught early on how healthy relationships should be based on respect and not involve physical or emotional hurt or embarrassment”.

It’s an area where dads have an important role to play too.

“You are teaching them another form of manners really. But the same principles of respect apply on the football pitch, in the schoolyard as well as online. In the case where a dad isn’t around, there can be other male role models like an uncle that, with agreement, can open up this conversation with a young boy. Mothers parenting alone can even bring it up when there is a positive male role model on the television as this conversation needs to be seen as coming from somewhere responsible.”