Доверие и информированность: как говорить с подростком о сексе

We also discuss how to support a child when they experience powerful feelings for the first time, and also we get to know what sort of support teenagers themselves expect from their parents.  Answers to these questions in the studio of Hromadske Radio were sought together with the project co-ordinator of “Caritas. Austria” Foundation, Kateryna Hryhorenko; psychologist and mother of many children, Kateryna Lyashenko; and her 17-year-old daughter, Ruslana.

According to Kateryna Hryhorenko, the adolescent age is the period of active formation of personality. Children may become closed in their communication with adults. Regrettably, many parents are not prepared to talk to children on pubertation-related topics as they feel ashamed and do not understand how this may be explained in a right way. “However, adolescents would trust parents if parents had actively communicated with them earlier, reacted to their requests and questions, had not shut themselves up, and also had not tried to impose their views,” the psychologist says.

At the same time, adults should always remember that they regard the problem from their own viewpoits. And what does a child feel while talking to parents? Which approach to a child is proper and successful according to children? Journalist Valentyna Troyan tried to look at the problem with children’s eyes, having made a package for the “Fulcrums” Project. She spoke to four teenagers from Kiev who shared examples of successful communication and emphacized uncomfortable things that they would like to change.