15 - 18 years

Each child will be different and may not present as their chronological age because of past experiences or additional needs. ⁽⁸⁾ Therefore, you may need to use language and resources from other age/stage sections of this toolkit.

All children should learn about the changes at puberty for both boys and girls, to help understand what is happening to them and to their peers.

Puberty can be a distressing time for transgender and non-binary young people, who may feel even more out of place in their own body than they did before puberty changes started. In addition to open discussion and support from staff and carers, it may be helpful to have some discussion with a GP. Some young people will find peer support helpful; carers can connect them in with one of the support groups run by LGBT Youth. Groups and Support LGBT Youth

• Young people become more independent and have less close ties to their parents/staff and carers 
• This stage of life brings increased expectations of young people’s academic and social skills at a time of significant brain development, especially in relation to their executive functioning skills. Most young people will struggle at some point to juggle the many demands on them from school, home and friends and need help with planning and decision making.

Our Brain's Air Traffic Control (Executive Function) | NSPCC (3 min 43s) YouTube

• The way in which the brain develops at this stage can increase young people’s chances of experiencing harm. The increased desire for peer approval, reduced ability to delay gratification, and tendency to make more impulsive decisions, particularly when peers are present, can all increase risk. ⁽⁷⁾
• Young people are generally more certain now about their sexual orientation and their gender identity though this can change over time. 

• They experiment with relationships. 
• Young people gain sexual experience: kissing and sexual touching, some sooner than others.
• A typical pattern of how sexual behaviour develops in young people is as follows: kissing, touching and caressing with clothes on then naked caressing, oral sex and then penetrative sex (vaginal or anal)
• They gain more experience in how to interact with each other: negotiating, communicating, articulating wishes and boundaries and showing respect, see A-Z Consent Awkward Moments
• The typical development described above is now set in the context of 96% of young people at this stage owning a smartphone with exposure to pornography not experienced by previous generations, as outlined by the Children’s Commissioner for England ^(2,3): 

“Young people are frequently exposed to violent pornography, depicting coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts; 79% had encountered violent pornography before the age of 18. Young people expressed concern about the implications of violent pornography on their understanding of the difference between sexual pleasure and harm. Indeed, this report finds that frequent users of pornography are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sex acts. 

Pornography is not confined to dedicated adult sites. We found that Twitter was the online platform where young people were most likely to have seen pornography. Fellow mainstream social networking platforms Instagram and Snapchat rank closely after dedicated pornography sites”.

All children in Scotland should be getting Relationships Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) lessons at school as part of the Health and Wellbeing curriculum. Individual schools can choose what resources to use but most will now use  rshp.scot, as it is the most up to date resource. All the content on this website is available for anyone to view and use.

These links take you to an overview of what children are learning at school and what you can do in the home setting to back this up.

RSHP Senior Phase 

Puberty

• Young people explore what can influence choices about making a relationship sexual, and if it becomes so, what a positive sexual relationship might be like. Young people think about whether they are ready for a sexual relationship, and are encouraged to delay having sex until they feel ready. Young people consider the idea of ‘relationship rights’. 

• They learn about gender equality and the law in relation to this. 
• Young people are informed about the purpose and main methods of contraception. They learn where contraceptive advice and information are available and how to find and use sexual health services. 
• Young people evaluate how the media, including social media and pornography impact on physical and mental health.  
• Pornography is discussed as a medium through which people are objectified, hurt and exploited. 

Healthy Relationships and Consent

• Young people learn about the skills needed to manage challenging situations within relationships, including sexual relationships, for example, compromise, empathy, decisiveness. They learn the rights and responsibilities required for safe and enjoyable sex.  

• Young people learn about the role and impact of alcohol and drugs in relationships and on choices and experiences of sex. 

Sexual Health

• Young people learn the importance of self-examination of breasts and testicles and have factual information about common sexual problems.

All children need help from adults to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. Past trauma may mean that a child or young person displays inappropriate and sometimes sexualised behaviour. Be clear with everyone in the house or care setting about what is acceptable and about the need for personal privacy. ⁽⁸⁾

• Boys will need ongoing information and support about the physical and emotional changes that come with puberty. See video clips in A-Z Puberty, and A-Z Anatomy which provide a good overview.  

• Some girls will need staff and carers to continue discussions about physical and emotional changes at puberty. If they haven’t started having periods they will need support with feeling different and to link with their GP. This is some information about late onset of puberty: Early or delayed puberty – information about reasons Early or delayed puberty - NHS (www.nhs.uk)
• All young people at this stage need staff and carers to help them understand some of the ongoing changes as a normal part of developing adolescence. Phases of physical growth and change cause tiredness and often align with changes in sleep patterns. Staff and carers can help young people to have a good sleep routine and should include a cut off time for use of phones/tablets and other electronic devices. 
• They will need help with navigating friendships and relationships, risk taking, peer pressure and making healthy choices. 
• Different sexual orientations and gender identities need to be included in discussions, along with the acknowledgement that some young people will not be very interested in romantic relationships yet/at all. See A-Z LGBTQ+
• All young people need staff and carers to help them learn which behaviours within relationships are healthy, which aren’t, and the support available. Young people will benefit from ongoing, short, chats about healthy relationships and consent throughout the teenage years.  It can be feel more comfortable for to use situations in films/TV/on social media to start discussions about this. These resources provide an overview of some useful key messages to include and an interactive game to play with young people. See A-Z Healthy Relationships, and Consent

   Healthy Relationships and Consent: Key Messages for Young People

  Healthy relationships and consent resource for professionals working with young people

• Almost all young people will have a smartphone and be using a range of social media for entertainment and to socialise. It is still important to have parental controls on their phone but equally important to have ongoing discussion about who they are socialising with online and what they are watching. Peer sharing of images is common and staff and carers need to talk with young people about what is ok and what is not. Sharing intimate images should be discussed, in general, as part of ongoing conversation about socialising online, not just in response to a situation where this has happened. These videos can help start conversations:

Send a Mole Rat Instead (1min 30s)

Forever (1min 52s)

These are some key messages to use, that you can put into your own words. See P17 of Healthy Relationships and Consent Resource for Professionals working with Young People

• Sexual harassment is any form of unwanted sexual behaviour. Many young people at this stage and older will experience some form of sexual harassment in a range of settings – school, in the street, online – and need staff and carers to talk with them about this and that it is not their fault if it happens. This is a helpful overview  from Brook - What is sexual harassment? This is a short video about sexual harassment in Scottish schools - scroll to play video.
• Much of the free and easily accessed pornography that this age group may see shows sexual violence, mostly carried out on women by men. Staff and carers need to talk to teenagers about this and be clear about the difference between consensual sexual activities that give people mutual pleasure and sexual violence. See RSHP's What is pornography and what is it doing to us?
• At this stage, young people need to learn basic info about contraception, STIs, clinics and other helpful sources of information. 

This tool has been developed by Stop it Now for parents, but is suitable for carers and staff to use. It describes behaviours that are developmentally expected and behaviours that are not healthy or safe.

Carers who are concerned about a child’s behaviour should share their concerns with the team around the child as a first action.

Staff should refer to their locality guidance and protocols.

Traffic Light Guide - Teenager