dicates that adolescents are engaging in sexual activity far too early. Their research also suggests that sex education is having less than sufficient results. It is too little too late, failing to reach the at-risk adolescents. Some children are having sexual intercourse and becoming pregnant as early as age twelve (Shaughnessy & Shakesby 1992). Physiologically, many boys and girls become capable of bearing offspring at twelve or thirteen years of age. The problem is that children do not have the capacity to handle the emotional and social repercussions that inevitably accompany their choices to have sex. Their bodies are well ahead of their emotions and minds. Unfortunately, the consequences have life-long affects.
             The authors believe that finding a way to objectively measure when children are ready for sexual intimacy is a long way off. Even if there were a way to measure sexual readiness, it would not mean that parents would give their children approval at the "appropriate" time. The risks are too high. The more important question is determining when a person becomes capable of the emotional intimacy that accompanies sexual involvement? Aside from not being able to support a family as an adolescent, young teens do not have the capacity to handle the high level of intimacy that comes through intercourse. This ability comes with maturity and life experience, adulthood. Psychological problems arise when children become sexually involved as w
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