When your teenager tells you who they love: sexual orientation and support at home

Tuesday evening, the dishes still on the table. Your sixteen-year-old daughter turns a glass in her hands for a while, then says, without looking up: “Mum, I think I like girls.”

In that moment, the mother has a hundred things in her head at once. Surprise. Fear. The question of whether this is real or just a stage. A thought about Grandma. A memory of the boy her daughter went out with last year. And out of all that slips a sentence she doesn’t mean unkindly: “You’re still young, it’s probably just a phase.”

The daughter nods, puts the glass away and goes to her room. They don’t talk about it again for several months.

This piece is for parents who have been, or one day will be, in a similar kitchen. Not so that you know all the right answers — nobody has those in that moment — but so that you understand what is happening when a teenager comes out, why the family’s response matters so much, and how to repair the first sentence if it wasn’t the one you would have wished for.

The first sentence after coming out

A teenager who tells their parents about their sexual orientation almost never does so on the spur of the moment. They have often been thinking about it for months or years. They have been testing the ground: how same-sex couples are talked about at home, what Dad said about that item on the news, whether Mum laughs or frowns at a relative’s joke. When they finally speak, they are not just sharing a fact about themselves. They are asking: am I still at home here?

That is why the first response carries more weight than it seems. The American researcher Caitlin Ryan and her colleagues, in the Family Acceptance Project, asked gay, lesbian and bisexual young adults how their families had responded to their orientation during their teenage years. Those who had experienced high levels of family rejection were 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide than peers who had experienced little or no rejection. They also reported depression and illegal drug use more often.

This is not a number meant to frighten parents. It is a number that shows how much power a family has. The same research group later showed the other side as well: young people whose families accepted them in adolescence had, as young adults, higher self-esteem, more social support and better general health, and acceptance protected them against depression, substance misuse and suicidal thoughts. A parent can therefore be one of the strongest protective factors in a teenager’s life — not because they know everything, but because they stay.

What happens to identity in adolescence

The psychologist Erik Erikson described adolescence as the period in which a young person asks who they are — separately from what their parents have told them about themselves. They try out roles, tastes, friendships and beliefs. Some they keep, others they drop. The knowledge base covers this under Identity, and the developmental tasks of this period under Adolescence.

Sexual orientation — who you feel emotionally and sexually drawn to — is part of this self-discovery, but it is not the same as trying out roles. Most gay, lesbian and bisexual people, when they talk about it, remember feeling “something different” long before they had a word for it. Adolescence is often simply the time when that feeling meets language, and enough courage to say it out loud.

At the same time, for some young people the picture is more fluid. Someone first describes themselves as bisexual and later differently; someone doesn’t know for a long time; someone dislikes labels altogether. This does not mean that coming out was “wrong” or that it was a phase to be waited out. It means identity is a process. A parent does not need a final label in order to accept their child. They need the child.

One more thing worth knowing, because parents often turn this question over in their minds: sexual orientation is not caused by upbringing. Not by a strict father, not by an overly close mother, not by the wrong toys in childhood. Decades of research have found no basis for such explanations. What upbringing can shape is something else — how safe a child feels when they say who they are.

And one distinction: this piece is about sexual orientation. Gender identity — experiencing yourself as a girl, a boy or something else — is a related but different topic, with questions of its own, and it deserves its own space. Much of what follows about acceptance applies there too.

Why coming out at home is such a big step

The researcher Ilan Meyer described the distress experienced by lesbian, gay and bisexual people with the term minority stress. The point is not that orientation is in itself a source of problems. It is the added pressure that comes from the environment: experiences of ridicule and rejection, the expectation that they will happen, and the constant decision about whom to tell what. Often the most exhausting part is the last one — hiding. Watching your pronouns when you talk about your weekend. Laughing at jokes that hurt. Weighing up whether this classmate is safe.

A teenager has fewer ways out than an adult. They can’t move out, can’t choose another school, and depend on their parents. If home isn’t safe, they have nowhere to go. That is why telling their parents is often the last step rather than the first: many young people first tell a friend, a classmate or someone online, and their parents only once they are fairly sure they will survive it.

If you found out late, or even from someone else, that is not proof that your child doesn’t trust you. It is proof of how high the stakes were for them. Here it helps to understand the difference between guilt and shame, which I wrote about in Guilt and shame are not the same: a teenager hiding their orientation often doesn’t feel they have done something wrong, but that something is wrong with them. Shame is the emotion that wants us to hide — and what heals it most is the experience of someone seeing us and not leaving.

What is happening in the parents meanwhile

Parents get talked about less in this subject than they should. When a child says they are gay, lesbian or bisexual, a lot shifts inside the parents too, and not all of it is pleasant.

• Loss of an imagined future. Many parents have, without realising it, pictured their child’s wedding, partner and grandchildren in a very particular way. When that picture falls apart, there may be grief. This is not homophobia; it is saying goodbye to a story that only ever existed in their own heads.
• Fear for the child. “Life won’t be easy for them.” This fear is often the deepest and most loving one — but if a teenager hears it as “you shouldn’t be like this”, they will understand it wrongly.
• Worry about what others will say. Grandparents, neighbours, colleagues, the church community. Especially in smaller places, this is real pressure.
• Guilt. “Where did we go wrong?” As already said: nowhere. But the question keeps coming back anyway.

All of these are legitimate feelings, and a parent is allowed to have them. What matters is where you take them. Your teenager is not the right place for a parent’s grief — not because the feelings are wrong, but because the child would read in them that they are the cause of the pain. That is what a partner, a friend or a therapist is for. Your child needs a different message: that you are carrying these things yourself and that you will work through them.

How a second conversation might sound

Back to the kitchen. That evening, the mother didn’t say what she would have wanted to. A few days later she sits down on the edge of her daughter’s bed. The conversation might go something like this (a composite, not a real person):

“What I said on Tuesday, about a phase — that wasn’t fair. I got scared and said the first thing that came into my head.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not quite fine. I want you to know I love you exactly as you are. And I’d like to know what it was like for you, carrying this on your own.”
“… Pretty hard. I thought you’d cry.”
“Maybe I will sometimes. But that’s mine, and I’ll deal with it myself. You can tell me as much as you want.”

None of this is perfect. The mother doesn’t deny that she is finding it hard. But she clearly separates her own distress from her daughter’s, takes responsibility for her first sentence, and opens the door without pushing anyone through it. That is the heart of it: the first response matters, but it is not final. A repair is often more powerful than a perfect start, because a teenager learns from it that a relationship can get stuck and still recover.

Acceptance shows in small things

Research on family acceptance has shown that children don’t read acceptance from big statements but from everyday actions. A parent who says “I don’t mind who you love” but whose face changes when their daughter’s girlfriend is mentioned is sending two messages at once. The teenager will believe the second one.

Acceptance shows when a parent:

• uses the name of their child’s partner and invites them to Sunday lunch, just as they would a partner of the other sex;
• steps in when Grandad makes a snide remark at the table, instead of staying quiet “to keep the peace”;
• asks whether their child feels safe at school, and takes the answer seriously;
• lets the child decide for themselves whom to tell and when;
• doesn’t keep bringing every conversation back to orientation, as if it were the child’s only trait.

The knowledge base describes Acceptance as a stance that doesn’t mean approving of everything, but being willing to see things as they are. For a parent, this means you can still disagree with your child’s curfew, choice of school or messy room. Accepting their orientation doesn’t cancel parenting. It only settles one question — whether your child is all right just as they are.

Exercise: a conversation you can start today

Whether your child has already told you, whether you only sense it, or whether coming out is behind you and there has been silence between you ever since — you can do this this week.

1. Start with yourself. On a sheet of paper, write down what you feel when you think about your child’s orientation. Don’t censor it. Fear, sadness, relief, anger, confusion. Then next to each feeling, write whom you will tell — your partner, a friend, a therapist. Your teenager should not be on that list.
2. Review what they have heard so far. Remember how same-sex couples have been talked about at home, what jokes were made at the table, what you said about the news. Your teenager heard all of it and drew conclusions about whether it was safe.
3. Choose a moment without an audience. A car journey, a walk, late in the evening. Teenagers find it easier to talk when they don’t have to look you in the eye.
4. Say one sentence and wait. For example: “I want you to know I love you, whoever you might love.” Or, if they have already come out: “I often think about what you told me. I want you to know I’m here.” Then don’t go on explaining. Let the silence be.
5. Don’t expect an answer straight away. They may roll their eyes, say “yeah, yeah” and change the subject. That isn’t failure. The message has arrived. In a week or two you can repeat it in different words.

If you and your teenager have talked little or not at all about sex so far, you may find help for those broader conversations in How to talk to your teenager about sex without the awkwardness.

What doesn’t help — even with good intentions

Some responses come from love and still do harm.

Telling others without your child’s consent. A parent who tells their sister because they “have to talk to someone” is right that they need support. But doing it without agreement takes away the child’s control over their own story. It is better to ask: “Would it be all right if I told your aunt? I need someone to talk to.”

Sending them to therapy to “fix” their orientation. Let me be clear here. In 2009, after reviewing the research, the American Psychological Association concluded that there is no reliable evidence that attempts to change sexual orientation work, but there is evidence of risk of harm — including depression and suicidal thoughts. Therapy makes sense if a teenager is suffering from rejection, hiding or anxiety. Not to make them stop being who they are.

Overdoing the enthusiasm. This happens too: a parent who wants to show support starts bringing it up at every opportunity, buys rainbow T-shirts and introduces their child to acquaintances as “my gay son”. A teenager is first and foremost a teenager. They want to be seen as a whole person, not reduced to a single trait.

Silence meant as respect. Some parents say nothing more after their child comes out, because they “don’t want to intrude”. Teenagers often read silence as disapproval. It doesn’t take much — one sentence every few weeks that says the subject is allowed.

Where this doesn’t fully apply

It wouldn’t be honest to explain every bit of a teenager’s distress through their orientation. A gay teenager who has been withdrawn for months may be struggling because of rejection or hiding — but also because of grades, a first love that ended, a friend who moved away, or depression that would have come regardless. If a parent focuses only on orientation, they may miss everything else. I have described how to tell ordinary ups and downs from depression in Teenage depression: telling it apart from ordinary mood swings.

Nor is it true that every teenager has to talk about this with their parents. Some have good support from friends or another adult and simply don’t want to share their intimate life with their parents — just like many heterosexual teenagers. That isn’t necessarily a sign of a poor relationship. It is part of differentiation, the process of separating from one’s parents that is happening during these years anyway.

And finally: parents need time too. Some hold deeply rooted religious or cultural beliefs and have to face them. I don’t believe you have to become a different person overnight. I do believe it is possible to carry your inner struggle in a way that your child doesn’t pay for. Many families manage this slowly, over years — and the relationship doesn’t just survive it, it deepens.

When to look for help

Help makes sense when you notice your teenager withdrawing from life: long sleepless nights, avoiding school, dropping friends, crying, irritability that doesn’t pass, or statements that nothing has any point. In that case it is best to talk first to your GP or paediatrician and to the school counselling service, who can refer you to a therapist for children and adolescents. I describe when and how to do this in more detail in When to take a teenager to a therapist: signs, routes and what if they refuse.

A teenager can also turn, on their own and anonymously, to TOM, the helpline for children and adolescents in Slovenia, on 116 111. In Ljubljana there is also the Legebitra association, which offers psychosocial support to young LGBT people.

If your teenager talks about suicide, self-harms, or you feel they are in immediate danger, don’t wait: call 112. Adults can call the Slovenian crisis line Klic v duševni stiski on 01 520 99 00 in Slovenia (daily from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samaritans helpline Samarijan on 116 123 in Slovenia (24 hours a day).

Sometimes, though, the distress lies in the relationship rather than in one person: coming out has reopened old resentments, the parents disagree on how to respond, one sibling has taken the child’s side and another has turned against them. That is when family therapy can help, where you talk together, with someone who stands on nobody’s side. I have described how such a conversation unfolds when a teenager shuts down in When a teenager goes quiet: how family therapy opens the conversation.

What to remember

• For a teenager, coming out is often a question: am I still at home here?
• Family rejection is strongly linked to the risk of depression and suicidality, while family acceptance is protective.
• Sexual orientation is not caused by upbringing; but upbringing does shape how safe a child feels when they say who they are.
• Your feelings are legitimate, but your teenager is not the right place for them — that is what a partner, friends or a therapist are for.
• The first sentence is not final. A repair can be more powerful than a perfect start.