Family Life Education Series
Our teenage children in the 21st Century
The Romance of Children

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In our last article, Dr Wong Chung-kwong, Chairman, Board of Advisers of Whole Person Development Institute, shared with us on how parents should treat their children's friends. Now, we proceed further to invite the author to discuss how we, as parents, should react when our children begin having a girl friend - or the first taste of puppy love.

In this increasingly permissive age, more and more parents are "troubled" by their teenage children falling in love. There are several common emotional reactions: shock, anxiety, anger and grief (indeed grief, too, because many parents feel as if they have lost their children!). The common actions they take include scolding, forbidding, besieging, manipulating, and trading (i.e. "If you stop seeing your lover, I'll give you...").

The first thing parents need to realise is the truth of adolescence. By the time children have become adolescents, they have already developed their normal physical and psychological sexual abilities. Psychologically they are attracted by the opposite sex. Physically they can reproduce children (putting it very biologically)! No parents or anyone can push a button to delay such abilities from emerging, and teenagers themselves have no choice regarding the emergence of such abilities. It is like something lying dormant within their bodies is now "awaken". Once awaken, sexuality will not "sleep" again.

Parents must not mystify sex, nor should they penalise their children for responding to the nature of life. Parents should "normalise" what are indeed the normal things of life.

The most crucial question to ask when children have fallen in love is whether they are normal in their psychological development. If the answer is affirmative, parents need only to guide and support them. If not, parents should not focus too much on the teenagers' romance but rather on their overall psychological problems.

I have this amusing true story to tell. My eldest son, now a third year medical student, when he was in his Seventh Form, approached me quietly and said, "Daddy, I am going to share with you a little secret that I won't share with anyone else. I think I have fallen in love with a girl!" He then told me how in a recent voluntary work programme he met a Sixth Form student from another school. Not knowing what to ask me, he said, "I am thinking about phoning her up tonight and asking her to go out tomorrow." I said, "That's wonderful! Let Daddy give you some ideas about a quiet restaurant..." He listened with keen interest and walked away, feeling reassured and confident!

I returned home late the following evening. He quietly but cheerfully took me to one side and said, "Daddy, I want to show you something. I have taken a photo with her with one of those photo machines..." I felt amused and proud. I laughed. I felt happy for him. I also felt proud and happy as a father. By the way, he has afterwards broken up with that girl. Teenagers have to learn many things about life, including heterosexual friendship. They learn it through success and failure. They can only learn it through "practical" and they can best learn it with their parents' blessing, support and guidance!

(From PS & SR Branch Welfare Services Group)