Dear Dr. Wes & Krya:

I’m almost 17. My parents didn’t know I was sexually active until they came home early from a concert and caught me and a guy they’ve never met in my bedroom in the middle of it. I’m on birth control for my periods and we used protection, but my parents are so angry they aren’t letting me see this guy or anybody else. It’s like I’m 7 years old again. It’s my body, I’m of age, and they’re trying to control something they can’t control. I want to run away.

Kyra: Your parents are shell-shocked, and while you may view their reaction as an overreaction, look at it from their perspective.

Imagine if you went out for a night with your significant other and came back to find your 16-year-old daughter — whom you thought was abstinent — doing it with a guy you’d never met.

Dr. Wes Crenshaw and Kyra Haas

In this instance, your top concern probably wouldn’t be whether your daughter and her partner were using protection, but how in the world this action was happening in the first place. You would feel blindsided. You’d begin to wonder what else your child was covertly involved in: Drugs? More sex? Rock ‘n’ roll?

Your parents have a right to be upset. You betrayed their trust. If you think they’re going overboard, it’s because they’re responding to a “worst case scenario,” and they’re probably new at it. There are, however, a few ways you can minimize harm and save your sanity, as well as your relationship with your parents:

1. Apologize. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong sexually from a legal standpoint, it’s important to acknowledge that secretly having intercourse while your parents weren’t home was not the best course of action.
2. Be honest. Even if you are “of age,” you aren’t an adult yet, and your parents are responsible for you to some degree–they have a right to know what’s going on. They are tightening the reins because they don’t know the extent of your untold actions. If you are keeping any other secrets, now is the time to tell them.
3. Entertain them. After you go full disclose, show your parents that they have nothing else to worry about. Go along with their new parenting methods until you gain back their trust. Do not go behind their back. Your road back to freedom is already full of speed bumps–don’t add more by giving your parents other reasons not to trust you.
4. Be respectful. It’s especially hard to respect the people who are “destroying your life,” but with parents, it’s necessary. And, if you don’t respect them out of love, at least respect them to ensure their continued financial assistance post-high school. College is expensive, as is life in general.

Remember, while running away from home at 18 may seem like a romantic solution for your problems, if the escapade falls flat and you have to return home to beg for support from burned bridges, you will regret harming those relationships when you were younger.

Wes: Kyra’s column is actually her essay from the 2014 Double Take contest based on a common problem these days: how teens educate their parents about sex.

In an attempt to help out, we commissioned Florida teens David and Nicole to shoot a short film called “Teens Talk to Teens About Sex.” You can see the film via a link at www.dr-wes.com. It’s part of our Consent-Based Sex Education project launched this week on Kickstarter.com. The 14- to 18-year-olds handled most questions without hesitation, but when the subject turned to what their parents know about teen sexuality, things get awkward. When asked what they would like to tell their parents on this topic, the most common response was “uh…” accompanied by a blank stare.

This question is too complex for a single column, so Kyra and I will address it and other aspects of teen sexuality 2015 over the next eight weeks. We hope you’ll join us here on the radio and in our Kickstarter campaign as we try to change how parents talk to teens about sex — one conversation at a time.