Talking Contraception and Sexuality with Your Child

Teenage Sex: Can You Influence Your Child's Decisions?

Not all teenagers have sex, but many of them do. By some estimates, more than half of all teens will have had sex by the time they finish high school. Even before high school, a minority of young people begin experimenting with sexual activity or even full-fledged sexual intercourse.

Can you, as a parent, steer the course of your teenager's sexual behaviour? The answer: it depends. Parents who live in tightly knit social or religious communities that condemn premarital sex may find it easier to steer their teenagers' sexual choices. For others, parental control may be more tenuous. The strategy of ordering teens to abstain from sex has not proven very successful, whether the order comes from parents or from community initiatives (unless these initiatives were developed by the teens themselves).

Still, research shows that teens whose parents communicate with them tend to have less sex, and more responsible sex, than teens of noncommunicative parents.

Teenagers have the ability to think abstractly and consider the consequences of their behaviour, but they also have a developmentally appropriate streak of independence that may lead them to resist any "orders from on high." You stand a better chance of reaching them by inviting a two-way discussion about sexuality than by trying to impose your views on them or ignoring the issue altogether. One thing is for certain, not knowing about sex doesn't prevent teens from having it, often with disastrous consequences.

Last Modified: September 5, 2006