Parents are waiting too long to talk to their teens about sex

Teen pregnancy rates have increased dramatically thanks to the abstinence-only education programs that were funded by former President George Bush. Now that the Obama Administration has cut funding for the conservative programs, there is still one other step that can help lower the teen pregnancy statistics. In addition to comprehensive sex education, parents need to talk to their kids about practicing safe sex.

Unfortunately, a new study conducted by University of California Los Angeles and The Rand Center for Reproductive Health indicates that parents are waiting too long to do so. In fact, more than 40% of adolescents had intercourse prior to their parents discussing safe sex, birth control or sexually transmitted diseases.

Health experts claim that teens would rather learn about sex from their parents and that they are more likely to delay their first sexual encounter and practice safe sex if their parents talk to them about it.

The study, published in Pediatrics, involved 141 families enrolled in the Talking Parents, Healthy Teens program. Parents and their teens, aged between 13 to 17, responded to questions about 24 issues regarding sex and sexuality, pregnancy, puberty, birth control, and homosexuality.

Researchers separately asked parents and children when they had first discussed each topic, and compared that information to teens’ self-reports about their engagement in three specific categories of sexual behavior — hand-holding or kissing; genital touching or oral sex; and intercourse. Families were surveyed four times, once at the beginning of the study, then again at three, six and 12 months.

The results of the study were staggering: more than half of the parents reported that they had not discussed 14 of the 24 sex-related topics by the time their adolescents had begun genital touching or oral sex with partners.

Forty-two percent of girls reported that they had not discussed the effectiveness of birth control and 40% admitted they had not talked with their parents about how to refuse sex before engaging in genital touching.

The statistic that really caught my attention was that 70% of boys said they had not discussed how to use a condom or other birth-control methods with their parents before having intercourse. Yet only half of the boys’ parents, by contrast, said they had not discussed condom use or birth control with their sons.

It’s obvious that parents need to initiate continuous discussions regarding sex so their teens are equipped with the knowledge necessary to practice safe sex. The current mindset is that parents are only required to engage in one brief discussion and let it go. Regardless of how uncomfortable the discussion can be, it’s important for parents to keep in mind that sex is a topic that needs to evolve with the maturity of their kids.

My favorite example is a man by the name of Bob Elston. He took his soon to Hooters to celebrate after the boy won a football game at school. Elston decided to go to the eatery in an effort to observe his son’s sexual maturity. He noticed that his soon had no interest in the scantily clad waitresses, so he postponed the “birds and bees” discussion. This is the type of active parenting that help prevent teen pregnancies and the spread of STDs.