Recently, the staff of Zhengzhou Renhe Psychological Counseling Center received a phone call from a mother. The mother said that she accidentally discovered the correspondence between her daughter and another high school girl when she was helping her daughter clean her room at the weekend. They call each other "dear" and "baby", and the language is very close. She is worried that her daughter is gay and doesn't know what to do.

However, after in-depth communication with the mother, the psychological counselor found that the daughter is more likely to be "same-sex attachment" than "homosexuality".

A person's psychological development from childhood to adolescence generally needs to go through two periods: guessing, estrangement, falling in love and formal marriage. During the period of gender gap, some teenagers may have adolescent same-sex attachment.

The difference between same-sex attachment and homosexuality lies in: homosexuality belongs to sexual orientation, and sexual topics and behaviors will be involved between peers; Homosexuality is more exclusive to the opposite sex. Same-sex attachment is not. Small partners who are attached to the same sex sometimes touch, hug, talk about love, call each other "dear" and "baby" when communicating, but these words and deeds should not be regarded as homosexual acts.

Same-sex attachment is a unique phenomenon in adolescence and a transitional behavior. With the growth of children's age and psychological maturity, they will gradually disappear, and children will enter the normal stage of communication and love with the opposite sex.

Parents need to be cautious when children have same-sex attachment in adolescence. If they don't handle it properly, they will mistake same-sex attachment for homosexuality, which is likely to make it a reality and push their children to gay groups. In this regard, Ouyang, chief psychological counselor of Zhengzhou Renhe Psychological Counseling Center, made the following suggestions to parents:

1. Parents should be their children's intimate friends, become their psychological support points and "emotional containers", and reduce their psychological dependence on the outside world.

2. Don't prevent children from interacting with same-sex couples, and encourage children to interact with the opposite sex of the same age.

3. Pay close attention to children's social situation, and immediately intervene in a way that children can accept when they find danger.

Parents should love each other and live in harmony, and always express their concern and appreciation for each other at home. This can set a good example for children in heterosexual communication, love and getting along, and exert a subtle influence.

@ Zhengzhou Psychological Counseling Center: Don't treat same-sex attachment as homosexuality, and treat teenagers' same-sex attachment correctly.