At puberty, a young man changes quite physically and mentally. New interests, new needs, and new forms of reaction appear on his mental horizon. Young people often suffer psychologically because they are not sufficiently informed about the essence of their sexual needs. This is why many young people become nervous, hypersensitive and irritable at puberty.
The Psychic Content of a Man’s Sexual Life
A failed, disordered sex life, full of disappointment and laden with dissatisfaction, is often the result of psychological trauma a man experienced at puberty. Mental crises at puberty can leave a lasting mark on a young person, like a scar that occasionally opens into a wound, causing pain. All these are psychic contents that can significantly reduce a man’s ability to experience what he can offer in sexual life.
Young People’s Mental Health and Its Effects on Puberty
Whether young people will fall into a psychological crisis related to puberty or whether they will overcome it without great difficulty does not depend on the process of pubertal maturation itself. Puberty in itself does not have to be a source of any emotional conflicts, nor should it be considered a critical period in human life. Young people need to be helped to go through puberty with as much understanding as possible of everything that is happening to them at that time.
Physical Changes in Puberty: Not Abnormalities or Sickness
Children should be prepared for the changes that will take place in their bodies as they prepare themselves for adulthood and training to one day come into contact with the opposite sex. It is especially important to teach children that physical changes in puberty, such as excessive weight gain or swelling of the boy’s breasts, do not mean anything abnormal or sick, but are transient and insignificant phenomena.
Sex Marks: An Individual Perspective
There are great individual differences in the time when secondary sex marks begin to appear, as well as in the order in which they appear. Some girls are depressed when they notice that her peers already have developed breasts, and they have not even started to bud. A boy often feels inferior and deprived in his development if he is still beardless when most of his comrades are already shaving their beards.
Dysmenoric Problems in Girls
A girl’s wrong emotional attitude towards menstruation and ignorance of her being can cause psychogenic disorders in the form of severe abdominal cramps at the time of menstrual bleeding. Proper sexual upbringing, above all sufficient preparation of a female child for changes in puberty, can prevent the appearance of unpleasant dysmenoric problems in many girls.
Menstruation in Children and Young Adults: The Basics
Even before the onset of the first menstruation, i.e., at the age of 12 or 13, it is necessary to teach the girl about the essence of menstruation. It should be emphasized that menstruation is a natural occurrence and a sign of a woman’s health, sexual maturity, and ability to become a mother. A girl will easily accept a calm and realistic reaction if she sees that her mother and other adult women around her are also experiencing menstruation without emotional difficulties.
Nocturnal Pollution: A Functional Sign of Genital Maturation
It is important for boys to be warned before puberty about nocturnal pollution, which will be a functional sign of their genital maturation. The boy should also be introduced to the essence of menstruation in order to behave sensibly once he notices this event. Frequent pollution can be a reason for their becoming even more frequent, psychologically, so they are accompanied by ugly, horrible dreams.
To prevent such neurotic conflicts related to pollution, boys need to be prepared for this phenomenon. Already in pre-adolescence, they should interpret the city and the function of the male genitalia while also telling them the essence of nocturnal pollution. It is worth emphasizing the harmlessness and insignificance of individual differences in the occurrence of pollution.
Preparation for Changes in Mental Life
It is important to prepare children for changes in their mental lives that will manifest themselves in the form of an interest in the other sex and aspirations for sexual activity. Young people must not perceive their interest in people of the opposite sex as something forbidden or inappropriate. Children should be taught to approach each other in a friendly way, with the aim of getting to know each other as well as possible.
The Manifestation of the Sexual Urge
It is harmful for the psychosexual maturation of young people to come into conflict with it at the first manifestations of their sexual urge. Many people are not able to experience their sexuality in all its fullness, strength, and richness because they are afraid of it. Such beliefs are often acquired at puberty when the first manifestation of the sexual urge is encountered by the prohibition of the environment.
Sense of Love and Desire in Children
It is good to warn children in puberty that they will soon feel a certain desire for close contact with peers of the opposite sex. Such a desire is natural and does not contain anything shameful or impermissible, as it is innate in every human being. It should be emphasized that this makes sense and leads to the desired goal only when two people really love each other.
Help With Illustrations in Sex Education
In the upbringing of children in puberty, parents encounter situations in which they are forced to do something in terms of sex education. Many parents are appalled by this phenomenon and think that they must suppress it at all costs. Instead of suppressing such a boy’s entertainment, parents will be smarter to look for a collection of reproductions of art paintings and photographs themselves.
Sexuality in a Child and Adulthood: How to Express the Instinctive Need for Love
It is a common mistake for educators to interpret the manifestation of sexuality in children from the point of view of an adult. Child sexuality, even during puberty, is motivated differently than sexual behavior in adulthood. Puberty love letters are more of an attempt to be like adults and express the instinctive need for love within oneself. When a adolescent attempts to express herself, her parents must not underestimate or stigmatize her.
“Couples” in Puberty
At puberty, the first “couples” are formed among young people. For such behavior, pubescents are motivated more by an innate instinct for affirmation. Parents will get a full insight into this if they know how to remain discreet and unobtrusive in relation to their child.
Puberty and the Psychology of Sexuality
The focus of sex education should now be increasingly placed on the psychology of sex life and on the social side of human sexuality. Puberty affects children as early as the final grades of primary school. When dealing with a physiological topic, it is always necessary to point out what is its relationship to the mental life of modern man.
Sexual Interest during the Period of Puberty
When children reach puberty, it is normal for boys to bring drawings and photographs of sexual content with them to school. Girls also start to be interested in the emotional side of sexuality during puberty. Such interest is not a sign of any moral deformation or premature sexuality, so it should not be suppressed.
The Effect of Sexual Interests on the Pubescents
Any abhorrence of students’ sexual interests, any persistent suppression of those interests, prohibition, ridicule or punishment will have the opposite effect. An aggressive attitude towards such interests will fix the pubescents’ attention to it and instill in them the belief that everything sexual is always ticklish, mysterious and forbidden.
The Relationship between Boys and Girls: An Opportunity for a Healthy Relationship
The joint schooling of girls and boys leads to the manifestation of various forms of sexual intercourse during puberty. Here, the teacher has the opportunity to notice the mutual insecurity of young people. In this way, taking advantage of co-education can do a lot for a healthier relationship between children.
Sexual Education in Schools
Sex education in schools should, in principle, be carried out in groups. There is a need for a teacher to talk to a student in private when they have a personal problem of a sexual nature. Individual counseling of students is needed, especially when parents do not enjoy enough authority to entrust their children with their difficulties.
