Effect of parent-child communication on child's sexual behavior

Early onset of sexual behavior is a major risk factor for teenage pregnancy as well as for the transmission and the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. Having a positive parent-child communication is the strongest protecting factor for child's early onset of sex behavior. This paper presents a review of existing literature on the effect of parent-child communication on child's sex behavior and promising interventions to strengthen parent-child communication. Interdependence Theory of Social Influence and Interpersonal Communication, applied to the parent-child relationship, helps explain the influence of parent-child communication in child's sex behaviors. From 26 publications, 5 themes were concluded – 1) parent's influence and interpersonal communication is essential, 2) timely communication is critical, 3) understanding ethnicity and culture specific parent-child sex communication is fundamental, 4) strengthening parent's communication skills to address timely and age-appropriate sex messages is crucial and 5) negative parent-child relationship is a risk factor for teen pregnancy. Although it is challenging to interpret the results from the review studies since the sample sizes vary from 14 in one qualitative study to 10,000 in another study examining a nationally representative school-based sample, it is nevertheless useful to examine the existing literature and study the relevance of the Interdependence Theory's concepts on the effect of parent-child communication on child's sex behavior. Based on the findings of this review, there is a need to conduct more in-depth analysis in this field and promote interventions to strengthen parents' ability to communicate with their child about sex behavior.