My Teenage Son is Having Sex?!

No the image above does not depict the caption. He is my son though, all grown up and calls himself a "man" while I laugh hysterically.

He thinks he knows, just like any other teenager about what life is and he thinks he's grown up enough to take decisions on relationships, however he is like any other teenage boy. (He'll shoot me for using his picture - literally) hehehehehe...

But seriously, what do you do when you find out your teenage son is having sex already? Some months ago, I was looking through my "son's" phone (note I have three sons :p so stop trying to guess - he's not the one in the picture above)...and I saw pornographic material on his phone. Was I shocked? Was I bewildered with fear? Was I gonna kill him?

I wasn't shocked! Its a topic parents deal with everytime (I said to myself), so I called on him to ask him a few questions. I showed him the porn on his phone I found and asked him to be honest with me if he had started engaging in sex. He said yes and I took a glass of water before the long dreaded talk began... This kid is fifteen years old by the way. Thankful that I have a good child, I was able to convince him that he shouldn't do it again, spelling out to him the cons of teenage sex. He even pointed out that he knew it was a mistake he made and since then I and my sons have been able to talk about their girlfriends and relationships without fear of my sons having sex...

What's the moral of the story, I hear you ask? We need to get closer to our children, to let them be free to talk to us about any issue. They do not have to be engaged in these issues before we begin to deal with them, we can start to deal with the issues before they manifest and begin to become a cancer that takes and consumes them.

Yes we know its a touchy issue especially for we Nigerians as our culture frowns on openly discussing sex, however there is more shame in our culture as regards teenage/premarital pregnancy. There is still stigma when it comes to HIV and our children getting stds shouldn't even have to become our source of worries if we start talking to them from a young age. We need to teach them that there are consequences to every action they take and some of the consequences could be dire to their future.

How do you deal with these issues? Some tips from you readers would be appreciated as well.