Getting down with the kids

I watched a reality TV program last night which made me sit up and say "Why haven't I been watching this whole series?" Its catchy title is Sex With Mum And Dad, and in it, adolescents and their families meet with a sexologist. The object is to try to open up channels of communication, not necessarily just about sex. It was fascinating stuff, I needn't tell you. One of the two girls who featured in last night's program wasn't allowed a bedroom door.

Through most of the program I got the feeling that neither of the families featured were making any progress at all. They did a couple of the tasks they were set as homework, for example putting condoms on bananas en famille. But when it got to things like asking questions like "Are orgasms important?" in a multi-generational situation, nobody was up for it.

Imagine my surprise when, in their final meetings with the sexologist, the members of each family all agreed they felt much more open and relaxed with each other. Better yet, the dad of the girl with no door installed one at the end of the show as an unexpectedly heart-warming surprise. This, after she had finally admitted she wasn't a virgin. She'd been petrified her dad would really hit the roof about that one, and frankly so had I, from what I'd seen of him and their relationship.

So it's amazing what a bit of sharing and engaging can do. The parents didn't suddenly start positively encouraging their kids to attend orgies, or buying them sex toys for Christmas. But they did get a lot closer in more general ways, which is possibly more useful on a day-to-day basis.

The thing perhaps was that the agenda was set by the kids; and both they and their parents discovered that despite what they'd believed, they had concerns in common. Some, at least; and where they didn't wholly agree, they found they could talk and the sky would stay up.

All in all, rather like when I got off my high horse about video games and played a few rounds of Wii baseball. Well, a bit.