Lulu, I think you are being more than a bit harsh on the pill v the phone. Before every man and his dog had a mobile phone teenage sex was still an issue, so I can see why mobile phones aren't considered by some parents to be a must have for their children.

I was on the pill at 14 to combat my vicious periods and not once did I take that as permission to go and have sex with the first boy I fell 'in love' with. In fact it was all my classmates who's parents didn't give them the offer that had pg scares and bad experiences with boys. The pill is a starting point in making them responsible for their own protection and yes it may only be from pg but to a lot of teens that is their biggest concern. Sadly there probably are teens with enough sexual experience to have to worry about STI's as well.

I think Soul is doing a great job of being able to at least talk to her daughter about this and all the possible ramifications of doing it. Of course as parents we would all like our teenagers - when we have them - to stay celibate until they are 'old enough' but who is to say what is old enough exactly? Is it truly out of cncern for them or are we just not wanting to have to deal with the fall out of bad experiences, broken hearts and the big one, their 'reputation'?

The fact is, more teens are having sex now than what they ever did in our generation and we have to learn how to deal with that, not chastise other parents for what they believe is important to them.

Soul started this thread as she wanted advice on how to tackle a problem that every single one of us will have in the future. For those of us who haven't gotten to that stage yet we can only offer our experience from the teen perspective and what our parents rules were for us but it is a very different game these days. Society has made teens grow up faster than what they ever have and what we did at that age is vastly different to now - they move out of home earlier, get jobs, get a life! Treat them with respect and value their opinion and they will respect you back - it may not be exactly what you want them to do but if you can keep the lines of communication open they will come to you more readily.