“Say something instead of nothing”: Adolescents’ perceptions of memorable conversations about sex-related topics with their parents

ABSTRACT

This study examined adolescents’ (n = 389) perceptions of parent–adolescent communication about sex, including what their parents say about sex, what types of conversations adolescents report as memorable, the degree to which messages are perceived as effective, and how parental messages predict adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors. Six conversation types emerged: underdeveloped, safety, comprehensive talk, warning/threat, wait, and no talk. When adolescents were asked to report how those could have been improved, five types emerged from the analysis of their responses: no change, be more specific/provide guidance, talk to me, appropriateness, and collaborate. Comprehensive talk and safety were perceived as significantly more effective than all other types of conversations. Safety conversations predicted the lowest levels of permissive sexual attitudes and risk-taking.

KEYWORDS:

• Parent–adolescent communication
• sex-talk
• adolescent perspectives
• memorable messages
• communicated narrative sense-making
• sexual health and risk-taking

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the adolescents who shared their perspectives, and those who contributed to participant recruitment, especially the high school principals, teachers, and counselors. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Holman’s undergraduate research team: Laura Blenkush, Kate Christian, Kerri Delaney, and Christine Luckasen for their assistance on this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Amanda Holman (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University

Jody Koenig Kellas (Ph.D., University of Washington) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at University of Nebraska – Lincoln.

Notes

1. Outliers (e.g., adolescents who reported talking to their parents about sex 50–100 times) were removed from the descriptive analysis.

2. For these two- items in the sexual risk-taking measure, zero = 1 and 4 or more = 5.