Parent-Child Communication about Abstinence and Safer Sex: The Experience of Parochial School Parents

Background: Family processes including parent-teen sexual risk communication (PTSRC) have been associated with more positive sexual attitudes and less sexual risk-taking among adolescents. Parental religiosity and religious affiliation have had mixed associations with parent-teen sexual communication and adolescent sexual risk attitudes and behaviors. While abstinence communication may increase, sexual risk communication is often much lower.

Methods: Patterns of PTSRC were examined among parents of children attending Catholic parochial schools, using qualitative and quantitative methods. Three focus groups (N=52) and 140 surveys were completed by parents. Qualitative data were analyzed using narrative analysis; first order correlations among the quantitative data were assessed.

Results: Main themes from parent focus groups included parents' ability to “make a difference”; barriers to PTSRC (PTSRC comfort; fear that PTSRC would appear as condoning sex); and fear of being seen as hypocritical for promoting abstinence when they had engaged in premarital sex and/or experienced premarital pregnancy. From quantitative data, factors associated with less PTSRC included lower levels of education and Hispanic ethnicity. Greater PTRSC was positively associated with child age, general communication quality, and parent-child relationship.

Conclusions: Without in-school sex education, parents may be the only reliable source of sex education for children who attend parochial schools. Thus, it is important to tailor interventions for these families' specific needs. Interventions should include: identifying inter-generational family norms regarding PTSRC, providing parents with PTSRC practice opportunities, dispelling myths and concerns that communication about sex may result in increased activity, and establishing parenting plans and timelines for developmentally appropriate PTSRC.