The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Hi, Dr. Kenner,

I have a 12-year-old son, Tony, who has shared a sexual experience with another boy. I don't know if it's curiosity. I don't know what to think. I'm so confused. My husband says it's just curiosity and puberty and it's normal, but I don't know. Now, every time I look at my son, I think of these things. What should I do? Please advise. Anna.

Okay, every time I look at my son, I think of these things. Now that's a toughie. I mean, you look at your son and you picture him with another boy, or doing something sexual with another boy. So your mind is very unsettled about this. And my guess is your mind has gone to what most parents' minds go to—the worst-case scenario. You catastrophize. You start thinking, "Oh, my God, what is the meaning of this? Why is he doing this? Is it possible that he learned this from this kid? Has this kid been a victim of abuse? Is he abusing my son? Is my son abused? Is my son gay? Will I never have the grandchildren I want because he's going to have a gay relationship?" And your mind can go on and on, weaving one story after another. "Will he get AIDS? Will he be a decent gay guy, or not? Will he be one of the ones on the fringes who give a bad name to the word 'gay' which is undeserved?" So that's your worst-case scenario.

What I always encourage parents to do is to think of the best-case scenario, which is just what your husband's doing: that this is simple curiosity, simple exploration, simple self-discovery. He's discovering an orgasm. He's discovering that parts of his body tingle and feel really good. And you want to set a standard for him. Instead of saying, "I don't ever want you with that kid again. I don't want you ever to touch another guy again," well, that's going to tempt him, because anything taboo and anything a parent yells at you about, you're more tempted to want to say, "Don't tell me what to do. I'll do what I want," and you proceed with the same behavior. So what I would encourage is just to say, "Honey, it's great that our bodies can give us such pleasure at this stage. You want to do that in private. You know, enjoy yourself in private."

So you're not saying that masturbation is bad or anything. You're just encouraging him and setting a standard that it's to be done in private. And you don't want to give him a lot of honor or guilt about this. You can give him the book What's Happening to Me? It's a book by Peter Mailey which helps kids understand puberty, and it also helps parents understand puberty and make some sense of getting an erection and being around the opposite sex and being turned on.

Again, I want to underscore that this is normal behavior. It's not normal in the sense that we encourage kids to masturbate with other kids, like we tell them to brush their teeth. When they explore sexuality, though, it's not something we want to encourage, but it's something that does happen. Two kids can be playing doctor, and it goes a bit too far. Or two young girls may be experimenting at an overnight camp and have a do-or-dare type of situation, and they go a little too far. Or boys can discover or girls can discover their dad's Playboy or a Penthouse, and get instantly aroused, and they start experimenting together. So it's not necessarily bad.

And I will bet, Anna, if you did a poll of the next 50 people you met and asked them how they first learned about sex, I'm not saying that you'll do this, because most people won't be honest, and it's prying, but if they were completely honest with you, you would be served several stories of people who experimented with same-sex and you would see that it's normal. I see it in therapy a lot. Parents, adults, will tell me, "Well, my first sexual experience was this," and they were same-sex experiences, and they're very happily married, so I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner, and I hope that helps you, Anna, and you're listening to The Rational Basis of Happiness.

This one was a little scary. You don’t think of four-year-olds being darling or a pain in the butt occasionally, but listen to this one:

Dear Dr. Kenner, I have a four-year-old nephew whose dad walked out on him and his mom. His dad visits him once or twice a month. I am concerned because my nephew has so much anger built up. He constantly talks about killing everybody and taking a knife and stabbing everyone. Can you please help us teach him how to release all of his anger in a healthy and positive way?

And again, this is her nephew, her four-year-old nephew. That's exactly what you want to do. You want to help get to the source of his anger. You need to understand it. And if you're in his life, I'll assume you are in his life a bit, maybe babysitting a bit, or maybe you have a good relationship with the mom. Find out what's going on. Maybe the mother's really angry if dad walked out and left her with the kid. She may be their loving mom, or she may be really resentful and taking it out on the kid, in which case, the mother may be the source of anger, not the dad. You want to find out what's causing it.

It's also possible that he may be abused. I've seen many kids with this degree of rage because I worked with abused kids for several years. They would take my dolls and rip the heads off of them, like a Ken doll or whoever was the stand-in for the perpetrator. That person would be torn limb to limb, thrown across my office. There is so much anger.

If it's that he's been abused, you want to look for some signs of it—burn marks, cuts, bruises, fear of adults, or anger towards adults, out-of-proportion anger, any bite marks on him, or if it's sexual abuse—any secretiveness, any self-injury, any harming himself or hurting animals. There are lots of typical signs of sexual abuse. You can go to websites—just put in "sexual abuse children," and it will tell you, or input "symptoms," and you'll immediately get several sites. I've done that myself.

So what is the alternative? You want to get a book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber or Elaine Mazlish. At my website, have him say, "I can see how angry you are. Draw me a picture of how angry you are." He's only four years old. Tell me in words. Tell mom in words. And let's come up with some better ways of dealing with the anger. So you want to find its cause and then give him better strategies to cope with his anger.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

You've heard me preaching it for years, but you didn't have the wits to know what you were hearing. Why do you suppose I denounced greatness and praised mediocrities like you? Great men can't be ruled. Why did I preach self-sacrifice? If you kill a man's sense of personal value, he'll submit.

That's potent. That's from The Fountainhead. That's by Ayn Rand, my favorite author, and that is her villain exposing himself. He's saying, "Great men can—great men, meaning men who think independently, who think rationally, who pursue rational goals, and love their life and have courage and pride in themselves and earn a sense of pride. Those great men—by men, he means men and women—that if you can kill their sense of value, if you can make them feel guilty for wanting anything—a new dress, a new car, a new boat, a new house, a new career, a new anything—if you can make them feel unearned guilt, you can rule their mind."

If you can introduce self-doubt into their mind, that "Who are you to enjoy life? You're just being selfish," that's what we all hear. If you can do that to a person, you own them. You can control them by guilt, and that is heinous. Is that the word heinous? Heinous. That's awful. That's hideous.