Findings from a National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents

The Administration for Children and Families (DHHS) funded a survey to examine current attitudes of adolescents and their parents regarding abstinence knowledge and attitudes. Abt Associates conducted this public opinion survey of a nationally representative matched sample of 1000 adolescents (ages 12 to 18) and their parents in 2008. Overall, parents expressed more conservative attitudes regarding permissible sexual behavior than did the adolescents; for example, 11% of parents said it would be okay for an adolescent to have intercourse before leaving high school as compared with 33% of adolescents. Similar differences were found in parent and adolescent opinions about sexual intercourse if birth control was used or if the adolescent had been dating the same person for over a year. Social and cultural norms significantly predict adolescent and parent attitudes with more permissive views expressed both by and about males than females, and significantly different views by race and ethnicity. Multivariate analyses were conducted using a conceptual model based on the literature that explored three main pathways of influence (parents, peers, exposure to information about sex and abstinence in a class or program) on parent-adolescent communication and adolescent attitudes. Adjusting for all other factors in the model, parent and peer factors are more consistently associated with differences in adolescent attitudes about sex and abstinence than are measures of adolescent exposure to sex and abstinence topics in a class or program. Additionally, parent attitudes are more important in influencing adolescent views than the level of parent communication with their adolescent.