JL note: It’s nice to see a study that confirms what we’ve been telling parents for several decades.
*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on PsychCentral.
For many a parent, having “the conversation” with your child about sex is a one-time event. New research now suggests that when it comes to your teens, one vague and generic conversation about sex is not enough.
Brigham Young University family life professor Dr. Laura Padilla-Walker discovered ongoing communication about sex between parents and their adolescent children benefits the parent-child relationship and leads to safer sexual activity at age 21.
The study appears in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
“Our current culture is highly sexualized, so children are learning about sexuality in a fragmented way from an early age,” said Padilla-Walker.
“Research suggests that parents can be an effective means of teaching their children about sexuality in a developmentally appropriate manner, but that does not occur if parents only have a single, uncomfortable, often one-sided talk.”
Padilla-Walker evaluated parent-child communication among 468 14- to 18-year-olds and their mothers, plus 311 of their fathers. She contacted participating families every summer for 10 years and evaluated their level of sexual communication.
Each summer, participants responded to a four-item measure assessing parent-child communication about sexuality and avoiding sexual risk.
Researchers discovered that both teens and their parents reported relatively low levels of sexual communication, though teens reported even lower levels than their parents did. Those levels, for the most part, stayed constant.
“Whether or not parents think they are talking about sexuality often, children are generally reporting low levels of communication,” said Padilla-Walker.
“So parents need to increase sex communication even if they feel they are doing an adequate job.”
An increase in sexual communication between parents and children, she found, can help adolescents feel safe going to their parents with questions and concerns. She also found that ongoing sexual communication resulted in safer sexual activity at 21, a finding that should increase the urgency parents feel to have conversations with their children.
Even if parents don’t anticipate that their children will be sexually active before marriage, said Padilla-Walker, “all children are developing sexually and need continuous and high-quality communication with parents about the feelings they are experiencing.”
Source: PsychCentral
https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/11/15/talks-with-teen-about-sex-need-to-be-ongoing-and-two-sided/139187.html
Source: Home Word
