having "the talk" with your teens

Let's start out first saying that I was not an aggressive girl growing up. I was very shy and I can count the boyfriends I had before my husband on one hand. The funny thing is I always seemd to have befriended girls who were aggressive and had lots of boyfriends.I had one friend that had 3-4 boyfriends at a time. I guess ,my title was boyfriend manager. People would say to me that I was going to ruin my reputation by hanging out with "those kind of girls". "...and what reputation would that be" I wondered. Hanging with these girls did not convert me into the life of "Girls gone wild" It did teach me tonot judge a book by it's cover and not to beleive everything you hear in the rumor dept.

Fast forward to life now with 3 boys and a girl. Two boys that are teenagers. Teenagers that seem to attract lots of late night phone calls and even offers to #@%* my oldest which if I can remind everyone is only 14 years old. Life is very scary to me right now. I feel that I am walking a tightrope to guide my son to make the right decisions while still allowing him to enjoy his life and make lots of memories. His social life is quite a busy one and he has many friends. As far as I know he hasn't ever had any enemies. The funny thing is that he goes to an all boys school. However he hangs out with his friends that are at the school he would've gone to. We have tried very hard to "talk" about things that are acceptable and otherwise. We took a sex ed class with him in the 7th grade through church (he's in 9th grade now) It was phenomenol. They taught us as parents how keeping the lines of communication open meant NEVER freaking out when they asked us or we found out about anything dealing with the "boy/girl" thing. I take pride in the fact that I do not have a reactive personality HOWEVER when I was alerted to the MYSPACE.COM world of my sons friends I have to admit I probably became my mom for about a minute or two. Thank God he was at school all day so I had the time to calm down. I actually had to sit him down and ask him if he was sexually active @ 14. He had his first girlfriend in the summer of the 7th grade and we had the first talk guided by what we learned in the class at church. They were very specific in the facts of this age of child needs to not only be told what he cannot do but also what is okay to do and how to get out of a situation that is leading down the road of "you know"
So as a 7th grader we told him as he sat in the middle of my bed with a sheet over his head so he wouldn't have to look at me. that a kiss is okay -making out is not -holding hands is okay -but that is the ONLY body part you can touch -This is of course the talk we had 2 years ago....now a 9th grader we have had to get more detailed and graphic. For instance, Lets say that you are kissing a girl and it becomes a make-out moment, do you think that you can stop it from progessing? Can you walk away and say no even if she has given the go ahead to explore/"you know"?
He and his brother both say yes they can- my 13 year old says that Gods voice is louder in his ear than the girl. My advice to him was well.. be prepared because you have never heard the sound of THAT girls voice in your ear. As for my 14 year old he pretty much said he's already walked away from that situation -AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH- This is something we discuss in our home EVERYDAY-They're pretty sick of it- but my goal is to make sure that in the situation they might just hear my voice and make a wise decision.
My sister-in-laws kids just had their "class" in Texas and they were adviced to tell their children EVERYDAY -I love you- I am proud of you- and I do not want you to have sex until you are married! We have been saying this so much in our home that I cannot even tell my sons I love them anymore without them jokingly saying back to me I know mom you don't want me to have sex until I'm married. Then my oldest said to my 13 year old jokingly and if you do ...use a condom. AAAGGGGGHHHHHHH- The best part is that always opens the door to yet another conversation........why condoms are not 100 % protection only abstinence is.
It's never ending and will probably continue on but my advice to all of you is to just open the doors of communication so that they will come to you and not to someone else or the computer or friends at school. It is hard to talk about at first but once the door is open I have found that humor with a dose of education has been what works for us. In reality ----
ONLY TIME WILL TELL!!! My daughter is next........