Why Parents Should Have the ‘Sex Talk’ With Their Children

Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times

The “sex talk” isn’t easy for parents, but new research shows that adolescents who have talked to their parents about sex are more likely to use condoms and birth control.

The finding stems from a large analysis of adolescent health research, based on more than 50 studies involving 25,314 teens over the course of 30 years. The link between parental communication and safer sex practices, while modest overall, is strongest for girls and for teens who talked with their mothers, according to the research, published online Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.

“The take home message is that parents do matter, and these conversations do matter,” said Laura Widman, lead author of the new paper and an assistant professor of psychology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. She noted the link is an association, and the studies don’t prove that communication with parents promotes more responsible behavior.

Parents don’t necessarily need to have a lot of sophisticated knowledge or technical information about sex. “Just having the conversation is important,” she said. “That’s the good news.”

Nearly half of high school students have had sexual intercourse, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 60 percent of high school students surveyed who have had sex said they used a condom when they last had sex, but 14 percent of sexually active teens said they did not use any birth control the last time they had intercourse, according to the C.D.C. report.

Although young people aged 15 to 24 make up only a fraction of the sexually active population, they bear a disproportionate burden of sexually transmitted diseases. And while teen pregnancy rates have dropped significantly, there were still 625,000 teen pregnancies in 2010, and nearly half of them –273,000 — gave birth.

Despite the statistics, many parents still avoid having frank conversations about sex with their children. In one recent study of 600 young people aged 12 to 15, nearly one third of the kids said they had never talked to their parents about sex.

That study, also by Dr. Widman, found that teens who communicated with their parents about sex were more likely to communicate with their sexual partners and were more likely to be frequent condom users.

“We know that being able to communicate with a partner about condom use is one of the best predictors of whether teens use condoms or not,” Dr. Widman said. “So providing kids with the language they need and getting the message across that the subject is not off-limits or taboo can make a difference in their behavior.”

While parents may worry that talking about sex suggests tacit approval, studies have found that children who are comfortable talking about sex are actually more likely to delay sexual activityand be older when they first have intercourse.

“Parents fear that if they bring these issues up, they’re signaling that it’s okay to have sex, but that’s completely untrue – we know that parents who bring it up, and bring it up regularly, their kids are least likely to have sex,” said Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, a professor of social work at the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work and author of an editorial about the research.

Often teens are more nervous about the sex talk than their parents. While only 19 percent of parents said they were uncomfortable talking to their children about sex, fully half of teens said they are uncomfortable talking to their parents, according to a 2012 survey by Planned Parenthood, Family Circle magazine and the Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health. Children often think that if they ask questions, their parents “will overreact or assume they’re having sex,” said Dr. Guilamo-Ramos, who has developed some pointers on talking with your children. The Office of Adolescent Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has a good guide for starting a conversation on its website. Other advice for parents includes:

• Use current events, pop culture or developments in your social circle to start conversations about sex, healthy relationships and contraception. It’s not a one-time chat, Dr. Guilamo-Ramos said. “Talk to your child on a regular basis.”
• Take on the tough topics, like birth control and sexual orientation.
• Pay attention to a teen’s romantic relationships. Teens in intense romantic relationships are more likely to have sex, especially if the partner is a couple of years older than your child.
• Address your child’s concerns, not just your own. “They want help with the real life pressures they’re experiencing in social situations,” said Dr. Guilamo-Ramos. “Talk with them about what a healthy relationship looks like, and help them come up with strategies and short one-liners that will help them get out of tough situations.”
• Make sure to talk to your sons, not just your daughters. “Parents’ messages are often more directed to girls than boys,” he said. “And boys aren’t getting the information they need.”

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