Training Program That Teaches Parents How To Discuss Sex With Children Effective, Study Says

Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Public Health;  Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 15 Jul 2008 - 7:00 PST

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A new training program that teaches parents at their workplace how to discuss sex with their children could be an effective way to reduce high-risk sexual behavior among teenagers, according to a U.S. study published Thursday in the British Medical Journal, Reuters reports. According to Reuters, the study -- funded by NIH and CDC -- comes amid new statistics that found the birth rate for U.S. teens increased in 2006 for the first time since 1991.

For the study, Mark Schuster of Harvard Medical School and colleagues enrolled 569 mothers or fathers of children ages 11-16 employed at 13 large public and private work sites in Southern California who either participated in the program or were put in a control group. Parents in the training group attended eight weekly lunch-hour sessions in groups of about 15 people. The program was modeled after workplace health promotion programs for weight loss or smoking cessation, Schuster said. The study noted that few parents were willing or able to participate in training programs in the evening or on the weekends, making the lunch-hour option a good solution.

The training sessions aimed to teach parents to listen to their children without interrupting or lecturing. It also instructed parents how to teach their children decision-making and assertiveness skills, and to have confidence in interacting with peers (Reuters, 7/10). The parents in both groups were quizzed one week, three months and nine months after the program. The study found that the training sessions significantly improved the parents' ability to speak with their children about sexual health (AFP/Google.com, 7/10).

Parents in the training group also reported having more talks with their teens about sex and discussed other new topics such as sexually transmitted infections, condom use and unintended pregnancy. The teens who were surveyed reported that one week after the program ended, 18% of parents who participated had reviewed steps of using a condom, compared with 3% of the parents in the control group. In addition, nine months after the program, 25% of parents in the training group had reviewed condom use with their teens, compared with 5% of the control group parents, the study found.

Schuster said that "employers loved the idea" of training parents at work to talk with their children. Employers "are under pressure to create family-friendly workplaces," Schuster said, adding, "And they're often providing the health insurance for these kids, so they are concerned about lost productivity when parents are distracted with their kids' sexual health issues" (Reuters, 7/10).

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