Parents’ Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late

Sadly, this boy’s parents have NOT taught him that condoms are not intended for animal balloons

In news that just made millions of parents — and kids — groan with dread, a new study from Harvard reveals that parents are having the Sex Talk with their children way too late.  In fact, more than 40 percent of kids have intercourse before their parents talk to them about the deed.

Two thirds of boys in the study said they had not talked with a parent about how to use a condom before they started having sex.  (See:  Picture above.)

The results of the study are worrisome because experts say that kids who have discussions with their parents are more likely to delay having intercourse and to engage in safe sex when they eventually decide to take the step.

“The results didn’t surprise me,” Dr. Mark Schuster, one of the authors of the new study, published in Pediatrics, and chief of general pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, told Time magazine. “But there’s something about having actual data that serves as a wake-up call to parents who are not talking to their kids about very important issues until later than we think would be best.”

The researchers interviewed parents and their children, age 13 to 17, separately, and asked them when they had discussions about 24 specific sex issues — from how women become pregnant (from sitting in hot tubs, duh) to how to use condoms and birth control.

According to Time magazine:

By the end of the study, more than half of the parents reported that they had not discussed 14 of the 24 sex-related topics by the time their adolescents had begun genital touching or oral sex with partners. Forty-two percent of girls reported that they had not discussed the effectiveness of birth control and 40% admitted they had not talked with their parents about how to refuse sex before engaging in genital touching. Nearly 70% of boys said they had not discussed how to use a condom or other birth-control methods with their parents before having intercourse. Yet only half of the boys’ parents, by contrast, said they had not discussed condom use or birth control with their sons.

Bottom line:  Initiate the dialogue, as appropriate, when your child is a pre-adolescent.  If you’re uncomfortable doing so, just pop a porn in the DVD player and ask your kid if he has any questions!  I’m sure nothing could go wrong with that approach.