Dear Dr. Wes & Marissa: My husband and I get your point (in a recent column) about having to deal with our kids having sex whether we want to or not. But neither of us knows how to just sit at home and be OK with the situation. On one hand, we don’t want to know. On the other hand, if we don’t know, we don’t feel like we can do what you are suggesting in guiding our kids toward good decisions – especially the ones we don’t agree with. We don’t want our kids out there on their own, but we also don’t want to condone this behavior like those parents that are letting their kids have partners sleep over. So where DO you draw the line?

Marissa: I’m sure there are many parents who are in exactly the same position as you. The truth is, there is little you can do to keep teenagers from having sex if they have made the decision to do so. It is also very rare that your child will come to you when they have made the decision.

The most important thing you can do is make sure you have expressed how you feel about your teen having sex – not just that they wait until they are married, because while that is a great goal, it is not always realistic.

Make sure your child knows that if something like a pregnancy or disease happens, they can come to you. If you have a girl, explain what it would be like if she happened to get pregnant. No, this is no easy subject to broach, but with a surprising number of teen mothers, it definitely needs to be addressed. What options would she have? If she chose to keep the baby, how much would you help? Would she be responsible to find daycare, or would you watch the baby while she was either at school or work? Would you help financially? Things like these really put the possibilities into perspective.

Sons need to be talked to about this as well. How would he pay for child support and afford college? Would you offer to help him with daycare?

As a parent, there’s a line you can draw without saying “no sex” whatever. One such way is to make sure that you have guidelines while your teen and partner are at the house. In some homes, it’s that they’re not allowed to be in a bedroom or a secluded area of the house without supervision. Restrictions like these can make sure behavior that you don’t approve of does not occur in your household.

What goes on outside your household is really out of your control. However you can still ask who your teens are going to be with when they go out. Make sure that if they are going to someone’s house there is a responsible person or parent there.

While there is little you can do to change your teen’s decision to be sexually active, by educating them, supporting them and having open conversations with them, you can influence them greatly to make responsible and well-informed decisions.

Wes: In considering this topic, I strongly urge parents to watch a documentary on Discovery Health Channel called “Teen Sex,” which gets at the heart of some of the issues we discuss here. While not “everybody is doing it,” about a quarter of 15-year-old girls and 30 percent of boys have had intercourse. By age 18, this rises to 68 percent, and by age 20, it’s 90 percent across the board.

Regardless of what society may claim to value, very few people wait until marriage to have sex. Without that traditional guiding principle, it becomes even more important for parents to help their teens develop sexual ethics. This sharing of values goes beyond words and into the way parents live their lives. For example, parents should think twice before having extramarital affairs, because teens react very badly to them, particularly when they end in divorce. Likewise, single parents often go through a string of relationships and then wonder why their kids are acting out sexually. There are many chances for romance in life, and only one chance to influence our children, so date wisely.

Dialogue also is important. However, trying to deter sex by focusing on pregnancy and disease is unlikely to generate more than a few groans and eye rolls. Instead, I suggest emphasizing the core value that sex is important. It’s not entertainment. It’s not recreation. It’s not a rite of passage. It’s a meaningful relationship between two people who are really into each other. That’s true at 16, and it’s true at 66. So draw the line between sex that supports a loving relationship and that which is fun and trendy. Of course, you don’t say, “I’m glad you and Joanne waited until you were really in love to have sex. I’m so proud of you.” That’s too personal and it condones an activity that you should view critically. Instead, say something more generic like, “I hope when you decide to have sex it will be within a loving relationship – and that you can be proud of that decision.”

I’d begin that kind of conversation before the age of 12, teaching the ethics of human relationships and proper boundaries in preschool and then advancing the discussion as a natural part of growing up. It’s never too early, and often too late.

You must clearly draw a line at anything degrading or dangerous. Bad trends in the last five years among teens can be summed up with the word “casual.” They include very young sex, “hooking up” without benefit of any relationship, “friends with benefits,” multiple partner sex, and increasing exploitation among both guys and girls.

As I’ve said before, the best tool for keeping sex meaningful at any age is the 90-day rule: Don’t have sex with anyone for 90 days after you commit. Some people find this ridiculously quaint and others horribly undisciplined. It doesn’t rule out the idea of being sexually active – which will turn off teen ears in a heartbeat – but it does request a sufficient delay in the process to really think things through. And where teens and sex are concerned, thinking can make all the difference in the world.

Next week: A teen mom asks for guidance as she considers the decisions she made in her youth.

– Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Marissa Ballard is a Lawrence High School senior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.