Reducing Adolescent Sexual Risk: A Theoretical - ETR Associates

who have primary responsibility for young people.Although this chapter will focus mostly on communicationbetween parents and their adolescent (orteen) children, verbal or non-verbal communicationabout sexuality can and typically does begin muchearlier. And finally, considerable research on parentchildcommunication focuses on verbal communicationabout particular sexual topics, but it should befully recognized that parents commonly communicatetheir values about sexual activity, contraception,teen pregnancy and the like both non-verbally andthrough their own modeling of relationships andsexual behavior.Focusing on Parent-ChildCommunication About SexFor decades, professionals concerned about youngpeople have worked to increase parent-child communicationabout sexuality as part of their effortsto reduce the rates of teen pregnancy and STDs,including HIV infection. These efforts frequentlywere based upon several beliefs:• Parents should be the primary sexuality educatorsof their children, but youth are exposed to a greatdeal of sex-related content in the media, on theInternet, from their friends and sometimes fromschool.• Parents talk infrequently and inadequately withtheir children about sexuality because they haveconsiderable difficulty and discomfort discussingthe subject.• Effective parent-child communication aboutsexuality will lead to less sexual risk-taking on thepart of young people.• Properly designed programs can increase effectiveparent-child communication about sexuality andcomfort with that communication, thereby reducingadolescent sexual risk-taking.• Encouraging parents to be the primary sexualityeducators of their children is less controversialthan teaching sex or STD/HIV education inschools.For all these reasons, people concerned about adolescentsexuality have developed activities or entireprograms (sometimes for children and their parentsand sometimes for parents alone) to help parents andtheir children communicate more effectively andmore comfortably about sexuality.When reviewing the research on parent-child communication,several questions should be asked:1. Does parent-child communication about sexaffect adolescent sexual behavior?2. Can activities and programs for teens increaseparent-child communication about sex and contraception?How?3. Can programs for parents and their teens togetherincrease parent-child communication about sexand contraception and actually reduce sexual risk?How?4. Can programs for only parents increase parentchildcommunication about sex? How?5. What are tips for parents about how to talk aboutsexual topics?Does parent-child communication about sex affectadolescent sexual behavior?According to theorists, parent-child communicationabout sexuality affects teens’ sexuality-relatedknowledge, values, attitudes, self-efficacy and intentionsto engage in sexual behaviors, which, in turn,affect actual behavior.In dozens of studies, investigators have examinedthe assumption that parent-child communicationabout sex actually reduces adolescent sexual risktakingeither by delaying sex or using condomsor other forms of contraception (Miller 1998).Typically, they have used survey data to analyzethese relationships. Unfortunately, it is difficult tomeasure the impact of this communication on teensexual behavior, both because there are numerousmethodological challenges (e.g., difficultiesin measuring the extent of communication and inestablishing causality) and because the relationshipbetween such communication and teen sexual108 Reducing Adolescent Sexual Risk: A Theoretical Guide for Developing and Adapting Curriculum-Based Programs