Parents Are Failing at Sex Education, Study Finds

(Dec. 7) -- When it comes to discussing sex with their children, many American parents are saying too little, too late, a new study says.

According to the study, published in the journal Pediatrics, more than 40 percent of adolescents surveyed said they had already had intercourse by the time their parents talked to them about sex, if they talked to them at all.

"Parents aren't the best at judging when their kids are growing up," said Dr. Mark Schuster, chief of general pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston and the study's primary author. "And it's often hard for them to accept that their children are having sex."

The study, from the University of California Los Angeles in conjunction with the Rand Center for Adolescent Health Promotion, tracked 141 parents and 371 adolescents (ages 13 to 17) over eight-week periods. It tracked the sexual behavior of the teens -- ranging from hand-holding to intercourse -- in contrast to the number and breadth of the conversations they had with their parents about sex.



By waiting too long to begin a dialogue with their children, parents miss an important opportunity to educate them about the dangers and complexity of sexual relationships, the report concludes.

"I think parents today are more interested in talking to their kids about sex than in previous generations," Schuster said, "but because their parents didn't talk to them, they often don't know what to say."

According to Schuster, the stereotypical notion of waiting until a child hits adolescence, then sitting him or her down for a single "facts of life" talk, is sorely outdated and ineffective.

"It's important not to discourage kids from asking questions, even at an early age," Schuster said. "It's better to offer kids simple, straightforward answers than to create the impression that certain topics are off-limits. By the time they become teenagers, it's often too late."

The survey found that mothers were more likely to talk to their children than fathers, and that daughters tended to receive more parental advice than sons. That may account for the reason why 70 percent of the boys in the study said they had not talked to their parents about birth control before they had sex, versus 60 percent of girls.

"The time to start this conversation isn't when your 16-year-old daughter is sitting on the couch about to go off on a date," Schuster said. "If you bring up sex then, it will come off as an accusation. You want to have an ongoing discussion, not give a one-time lecture. If you don' t tell them, they'll go elsewhere to find out."