Statistics suggest, however, that at least half of all teens are engaging in sexual activity, given findings from several surveys recently summarized by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

According to the Foundation:

• Half of all high school students have engaged in sexual intercourse (including 39 percent of 9th graders);
• Only 58 percent of this group used a condom the last time they had sexual intercourse; and
• Over half of all teens between the ages of 12 and 17 (56 percent) expressed personal concern about becoming infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), but more than two-thirds (69 percent) did not know where to get tested for HIV.

Communication between parents and teens can have a significant impact on the approach teens take to sexual behavior and condom use. The importance of parental communication regarding safer sexual practices cannot be overemphasized.

Recent research findings offer tips for parents who are tackling this important topic. Researchers have found that teens who experienced high levels of warmth and closeness with their mothers and perceived that their mothers disapproved of sexual intercourse delayed their sexual initiation. In addition, teens who shared their parents’ views regarding sexual delay and condom use spoke frequently with their parents about such issues as puberty, menstruation, reproduction, birth control, and HIV. The authors advise frequent and open parental communication with teens on sex-related issues to moderate the impact of other teens on sexual risk behavior and condom usage.

How parents talk to their teens can be quite important. Reseachers have discovered that, when mothers dominated conversations about sexuality and AIDS, their teens knew less about AIDS. It may, therefore, be important to allow teens to be more expressive of their ideas and feelings. This will give parents the opportunity to correct distorted perceptions about HIV transmission, thereby potentially reducing risky sexual behavior.

Other research has shown that teens who are satisfied with their relationships with their mothers are also more likely to report utilizing birth control during their most recent intercourse, but recommend that mothers who disapprove of teenage intercourse communicate directly with their teens to reduce sexual risk behaviors. In addition, teens who believe that their mothers approve of their using birth control are twice as likely to engage in sex than those who did not believe they had maternal approval.

Parental guidance regarding safer sexual practices, combined with the promotion of skills in assertion, negotiation, and conflict resolution, would likely improve dating communication among teens, the strategies parents use to resolve everyday conflicts with their late adolescent sons and daughters may lay the basis for safe-sex negotiations in early couple relationships.

References
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