We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
Children's Education about Sexuality
One important health-related area in which parents explicitly train children is sexuality (Geasler, Dannison, & Edlund, 1995; Klein & Gordon, 1992; Meschke, Zweig, Barber,& Eccles, 2000; Miller, Forehand, & Kotchick, 1999, 2000). Empirical evidence demonstrates that open, supportive family communication patterns foster positive parent–child relationships and encourages adolescents to internalize the values and mores embedded in their parents' messages (Newcomer & Udry, 1985; Whitaker & Miller, 2000). Many youth report interest in having open discussions with their parents regarding sexuality and HIV (Krauss, 1997). Furthermore, research has illuminated the strong links among family communication about sexuality, parent-child relationship quality, and adolescents' risky behavior (Baldwin & Baranowski, 1990; Forehand & Kotchick, 1996). Studies have consistently documented the role of parent–child communication about sex in adolescents' responsible sexual behavior and deterrence of early sexual activity (Crosby et al., 2000; DiIorio, Kelley, & Hockenberry-Eaton, 1999; Howard & McCabe, 1992; Kotchick, Shaffer, & Forehand, 2001; Murry, 1996; Scott-Jones & Turner, 1990), and more consistent condom use (Kotchik et al., 2001; Whitaker & Miller, 2000).
The timing of parent–adolescent sexual communication appears to be significant. Inner-city African American and Hispanic adolescents whose mothers discussed condom use with them before they became sexually active were three times more likely to use condoms the first time they had sex and three times more likely to use condoms consistently (Miller, Kotchick, Dorsey, Forehand, & Ham, 2001).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
