Poster #54 - Parent and Child Sex-Initiation Values and their Relationship to Child Sex Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

Sexual socialization processes of adolescents occur through sources such as the media (Wright et al., 2019), peers (van de Bongardt et al., 2014) and school professionals (Whitfield et al. 2013), and most especially by parent interactions (Overbeek et al., 2017), specifically through the implementation of parent-child sex communication (Jerman & Constantine, 2010). Effective, multidimensional parent-child sex communication is not limited to how often parents talk about various sex topics, but also includes the quality of these conversations, (Rogers et al., 2020), such as whether the parent lectures their child about sex, or conversely utilizes open, warm communication (Rogers et al., 2015). Scholars have long suggested that parent-child sex communication may be a means of transmitting parental values regarding sex to children (Jaccard et al., 2002), yet little empirical work has been done to establish the relationship between parental efforts in conveying their sexual values to children, and children’s internalization of these values. Our study sought to fill this gap by investigating whether parental efforts to teach their child to adopt their sex-initiation values are related longitudinally to the child’s report of their own sex-initiation values, and whether these reports of sex-initiation values were related to the child’s report of being sexually active.

Participants included 620 US mothers (Mage = 41.44, SD = 16.1) at Wave 1 of a longitudinal study about Healthy Sexuality, and 467 of their US children at Wave 2 (52.46% female, Mage = 15.58, SD = 1.72).

At Wave 1, mothers reported about the values they had tried to teach their adolescent regarding when it is appropriate to have sex, using a measure created for this study. Mother’s either reported teaching their children a “casual value,” or being okay with their child having sex for fun and pleasure without expecting a commitment, or teaching their children a “marriage value,” where sex should not occur until after the adolescent is married. Adolescents reported on whether they believed in these different sex-initiation values at Wave 2, and they also reported on whether they had participated in any sex behavior besides kissing.

Preliminary SEM results suggest that the mother’s sex-initiation values for both a casual value or a marriage value at Wave 1 were not associated with the child’s sex-initiation values (casual or marriage) at Wave 2 (p < .66 and p < .97, respectively). However, the child’s reported sex-initiation results were significantly associated with the child’s report of participating in sexual behavior besides kissing at Wave 2. Adolescent’s who reported a casual value for sex-initiation were more likely to report having participated in sexual behaviors besides kissing (β = .14, p < 0.00). When adolescents reported a marriage value for sex-initiation, they were less likely to report having participated in sexual behaviors besides kissing (β = -.13, p < 0.00). The discussion will include how these results can be explained, emphasizing the multidimensional nature of parent-child sex communication, and the associated correlates that must be remembered for effective, healthy sexual socialization to occur.

Group Authors

Meg O. Jankovich
Corinne Archibald
Laura Padilla-Walker

Authors

• Meg O. Jankovich, Brigham Young University
  Presenting Author

• Corinne Archibald-Sato, Brigham Young University

• Laura M Padilla-Walker, Brigham Young University