Adolescent Barriers to Sexual Communication with Their Parents: Differences by Sexual and Gender Identity

ABSTRACT

Parent-adolescent sexual communication has important health benefits for adolescents, yet not all families openly communicate about sex. In particular, adolescents often report various barriers to engaging in sexual communication with their parents. The purpose of this study was to address gaps in past research by examining barriers to communication with both mothers and fathers, separately, as well as to explore the unique barriers to communication among queer and trans adolescents. Participants were recruited via Instagram (n = 566; Mage = 16.0; 57.6% cisgender girls; 41.4% heterosexual). The most endorsed barrier to communicating with mothers was the adolescent believing they already knew enough about sexual topics. The most endorsed barrier for communicating with fathers was embarrassment. The least endorsed barriers included mother’s lack of knowledge, and perceptions of anger from fathers when discussing sexuality. Several differences emerged by sexual and gender identity: cisgender girls and trans adolescents tended to agree more with barriers to communication with parents compared to cisgender boys. Additionally, queer adolescents tended to agree more with barriers to communication with parents than their heterosexual peers, although group differences depended on the particular barrier. These findings highlight specific barriers to parent-adolescent sexual communication faced by various groups of youth.

Acknowledgments

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F31MH126763 awarded to Julia Brasileiro, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F31HD114366 awarded to Jordyn McCrimmon. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [F31HD114366]; National Institute of Mental Health [F31MH126763].