“Parents Matter: The role of parents in teens’ decisions about sex”

The Child Trends research brief examines the role of parental involvement in reducing the chances of teens being sexually active at a young age. It finds that specific practices -- including positive parent-adolescent relationship quality, high parental awareness and monitoring, and family dinner routines -- are associated with delayed sex among teens.

The findings complement prior research, which has found that strong parent-adolescent relationship quality of adolescents’ activities are associated with delayed sexual initiation and a reduced risk of teen pregnancy. Findings are based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth -- 1997 cohort.

Read the report.