How can I be of help to my stepson?

Share a problem With Auntie Agatha, gataedo@yahoo.com, agatha.edo@gmail.com Tel: 08054500626

Dear Agatha, 

My stepson is going to be 14 years old this year. He is a sweet and loving boy and one I care so much for.

Last week, I was in the kitchen when his phone rang. While calling out to him to come and answer his phone, a message on his screen popped. I couldn’t help viewing the image since he was in the bathroom. It was a pornographic picture. Fortunately, the picture cleared from the screen so he didn’t know I saw it.

When he came to pick the phone, he met it just where he kept it as I carefully put it back on the spot he left it.

Watching from under his eyelid, he tried reading my expression for signs of anything; I pretended not to have seen or touched his phone. Having satisfied himself from my facial expressions, he became his friendly self.

But I was worried on how to tackle it. From my own experiences as a mother, I knew how difficult teenagers can be.  I also knew that a wrong word or step on my side could mar our relationship for a longtime and cause problem in my home. 

This is because his father never sees anything wrong with his children and doesn’t like anyone reprimanding them. He is always too quick to come to their defense so I try to be careful when dealing with them.

My worry became monumental when I took the liberty of his absence to browse through his phone. The kinds of explicit X-rated pictures I saw left me speechless. I immediately knew something had to be done because it was no longer the normal teenager thing but a kind of dangerous addiction. 

I had no choice but to carefully introduce the subject to his father who typically when it comes to sensitive issues, cows away from handling it for fear of offending them, pushed the plate back to me.

This is where I need your help. It isn’t how to broach the topic that is my fear both how to do it without destroying our friendship. The boy is dear to his father and is the reason my marriage of less than two years to my husband is successful. I know without doubt that my husband would deny me if the boy begins to react to my efforts at helping him wean this habit.

How do I go about it? I don’t want him growing up to become a sex addict. Please help me.

Concerned Stepmother.

Dear Concerned Stepmother,

You have to ignore whatever your husband would say or his eventual reaction by making up your mind to helping this boy become who God wants him to become.

If you are afraid of what the reaction of this boy would be should you try to offer a helping hand, then you aren’t ready to be the mother he needs. There are no two ways about it, it is either you develop the guts to confront and deal with the issue of child discipline in your home or forget about it and allow the child a free rein to do what he wants.

You cannot be a friend to a child you want to discipline. Any parent afraid to confront and correct a naughty child compromises his or her peace of mind in the future.

If you are indeed a concerned mother and one who has had experiences with handling teenagers, you would never be afraid of any child. So what if he doesn’t like it? What child takes kindly to correction easily? I’m sure your children too don’t take easily to correction. At this age, children are between adulthood and childhood. Even though, they are still children and demand for all the benefits associated with their ages, they want all the independence of the adult world all the same, which isn’t possible as they cannot eat and have their cakes.

You must understand their psychology by going back to your own teenage years. Don’t also forget that their reactions come from a combined effort of hormones cascading through their bodies; some of which make reasoning with them difficult.

Most of the time, they too cannot control their behaviors or feelings. It is a phase all adults have gone through except in some cases, the consequences remain with one for life.

The mind of the average teenager is always vacillating between two worlds especially when it comes to sex and their sexuality.

Besides, sex is such a powerful interest that even adults find it very difficult to ignore. Once maturity sets in, there is no escaping the awareness in the mind of a normal human being.

This is why the curious nature of the teenager is always tuned to sex because the activities of the hormones make it inevitable for him or her to ask some questions and find answers, where the supervising adults aren’t forth coming with information.

As a parent, you owe it to this child to help him understand the basic facts of life. Unlike you and me, the present generations of children can access any information they want with the help of the internet. They also have sites they can go to watch all the lucid details about sex that you don’t want to talk about so, not talking about it so as not to get him angry, won’t help either of you at the end of the day.

Since he has, despite the pampering of his father warmed up to you, sees you as his mother, step in as a good mother and sit him down for a realistic discussion on sex.

He doesn’t have to know you saw the graphics sent to his phone. Begin by asking him about his girlfriend. Joke about it for a while before settling down to the tedious task of educating him on the difference between pornographic sex and the one between two adults who are in love.

Since he has already seen the graphic details, don’t hold anything back from him in your discussion. Let him have the fun part of it as well as the consequences of it and how a little mistake on his part could make him a premature father. Also educate him on the implication of developing too much interest in sex as it could be very engaging and eat into his productive time.

The problem come with the way parents present the issue of sex to the rebellious teenager. More often than not, parents practically order the child against developing interest in his or her own sexuality forgetting that it simply cannot be helped. In dealing with him, appreciate what he is going through as perfectly normal but explain the consequences, implications and responsibilities involved with the costly road he is about to walk.

Since it is going to be a general talk about sex, call the other children so it doesn’t appear you are singling him out because of something you already know about him. Let it be a sort of family discussion time, even though he is your target audience. Try also to make it interactive as much as possible.

Allowing them talk will help you know one or two things about how their minds work. Don’t worry if this first session doesn’t go down well with them. Since teenagers are always excited about sex and relationship, once they know you can be of help, they will always come with one issue or the other, which from my experiences they often pass off as their friend’s. Even when you know, play along with them.

By being the friend they want, you make it possible to be really involved in their lives as position yourself  to influence their decisions.

As for your husband’s attitude, he will come to appreciate your position in the lives of the children once certain you are not the kind of woman who will make his children suffer needlessly. This is his fear; one you have to appreciate is real given the examples of how wicked some women can be to other people’s children.

Good luck.