Dear Paula,
I am completely at a loss as what to do. I came home unexpectedly, and caught my 17 year old son wandering about upstairs in MY underwear, and rooting through my wardrobe.

He was OBVIOUSLY very sexually aroused, and totally unaware of my presence. Instead of confronting him, I beat a hasty, and silent retreat back out the front door.

I went to the local cafe for a coffee, and returned home about an hour later, where everything was back to normal, and he was playing the PlayStation. I have not mentioned anything to him about it, but I just don't know how to play this. Do you have any advice?

Dear Paula writes;
This is obviously a very delicate situation you have on your hands. I think you did the right thing in not confronting him as it would probably have been very humiliating for him and possibly damaging to your relationship with him.

No-one feels good towards someone who exposes their intimate (and possibly shameful) secrets and as he's only 17, it's difficult to know whether this is something he finds titillating at the moment and may stop later, or whether it really is significant in his sexual development.

We all have many different sides to our natures and dressing as a member of the opposite sex is intriguing. You may have come across perfectly "normal" heterosexual men who have, for example, agreed to their girlfriends putting make up on them and dressing them up. This may just be an exploratory thing for your son but I can understand your anxiety at this being sexually arousing for him.

It might be helpful for you to contact an organisation such as the Beaumont Society (www.beaumontsociety.org.uk) to discuss any fears/concerns that may arise for you so that you can at least be well informed of the issues around cross-dressing in case this does come out and your son needs your help and understanding.

However, I think you just have to live with this for the time being and make use of every opportunity ( extremely subtly of course) to ensure that your son sees you as an open-minded and sympathetic parent. This can be done in lots of ways without reference to him - things that come up on TV, in newspapers, with friends, where, without labouring it in anyway, you could make the odd comment which would demonstrate you are not making judgements, would be prepared to listen if you found yourself in that situation etc etc, so that he can perceive you as someone who would really be there for him if he started to experience difficulties.

I appreciate that this is not an easy one for you and will require a great deal of tact and patience but I think the most important thing is for him to view you as a receptive and supportive parent no matter what. He will come to you if he wants to but until then, this is his private business.

We all have struggles in growing up (and well beyond!) but need to find our own way through wherever we can (within reason, of course) as part of our development as individuals and it can be hard for parents to stand back and let this happen as we naturally want to protect our children. It's important to be able to distinguish where our responsibility as a parent lies, from what is part of our children's maturation process, and it can be a tricky one to pull off but, above all, I think sensitivity is what's required in this particular instance.