Approaches
Professionals have used great creativity and many different approaches
to reach parents and to help them improve communication with
their children about sexuality. Many of these programs have one
or more short-term objectives that were believed to facilitate
more effective and comfortable parent-child communication.
These include:
Increase parents' knowledge
- Provide more realistic data on sexual behaviors of
young people
- Increase parents' belief that communication about sexuality will
not increase the chances that their children will engage in
sexual relations
- Increase parents' awareness of the advantages of abstinence
- Increase parents' knowledge about the efficacy of condoms
and contraception
- Increase parents' knowledge about HIV/AIDS and other STDs
Help parents clarify the values they wish to convey to their children
Improve parents' skills in talking about sexuality
- Increase their ability to initiate conversations by taking
advantage of naturally occurring opportunities
- Increase their ability to listen to their children and to
encourage them to talk
- Increase their ability to express parental values without being
too judgmental and "turning off " their children
Increase parents' comfort talking about sexuality while
acknowledging that it is natural and acceptable to
feel uncomfortable
Provide structured opportunities for young people and their
parents to talk together about sexuality-related topics
Programs have tried to reach parents through community
organizations, faith communities, places of employment, children's
schools, and institutions of higher education. They have tried to
reach parents through other community-wide efforts and in their
homes. They have sponsored one-shot programs, multiple community
events, and more intensive multi-session programs. They have
targeted parents only, youth only, and both parents and their
children together. They have developed curricula for courses,
homework assignments for adolescents' courses, videos, newsletters,
pamphlets, guides for parents, public service announcements,
billboards, and postcards. They have developed entire courses on
human sexuality that included increasing parent-child communication
among their goals. They have also engaged in longer-term
grassroots community organizing.
The programs included in this review fit into eight general categories:
