Moms discuss safer sex - not only abstinence -- with adolescent kids

University Park, Pa. -- Mothers don't find it easy to talk to their adolescent kids about responsible sexuality and AIDS but, when they do broach those subjects, a Penn State study has found that they are apt to talk about safer sex, too, if they bring up abstinence.

Dr. Eva Lefkowitz, assistant professor of human development and family studies, and director of the study, says, "With the interest in Congress in promoting abstinence education, we decided to find out whether parents emphasize No Sex over Safer Sex when they talk with their children about sexuality and AIDS. We found that mothers's ideas of what �talking about sex' means differs from researchers and policymakers � only 42 percent of the participating mother/child pairs brought up either abstinence or safer sex. However, when abstinence did come up in the conversation, 67 percent of the mothers and adolescents also discussed safer sex. "Mothers seem less likely to adopt an abstinence only approach to AIDS education than to adopt an �abstinence plus' approach," she concludes.

Lefkowitz detailed the study in a paper, No Sex or Safer Sex? Teens and Mothers Discuss Sexuality and AIDS," presented today (April 22) at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development in Minneapolis, MN. The paper is co-authored by Tanya Boone, a Penn State doctoral candidate in human development and family studies and is part of a collaborative study with Dr. Marian Sigman and Dr. Terry Au at the University of California, Los Angeles.

To study the interaction between mothers and their adolescent children when they discussed abstinence and safer sex, Lefkowitz and her colleagues invited 50 middle class mother/adolescent pairs to their laboratory. The researchers videotaped the pairs talking for seven minutes about dating and sexuality and AIDS. The adolescents included 25 girls and 25 boys ranging from 11 to 15 years of age. About 46 percent of the mother/child pairs were Caucasian, 18 percent Latino American, 16 percent African American, 14 percent Asian American and 6 percent mixed ethnicity. Lefkowitz says "We know from questionnaire data that dating, sexuality and AIDS don't come up very often in conversations at home between mothers and their adolescent children. So, in our laboratory, we tried to make sure the pairs had every opportunity to raise these topics.

"Nevertheless, even when asked specifically to discuss these topics, the pairs had more conversation about non-sexual topics. Everything was there to get them to talk about these things but they didn't, for the most part."

For example, in a seven minute conversation in which they were supposed to talk about AIDS, the pairs spent an average of 59.6 seconds discussing sexual issues related to AIDS and 193.1 seconds talking about non sexual issues, including drugs, celebrities who have AIDS, whether the child had talked about AIDS in school as well as other topics.

Lefkowitz says, "Basically, we found that, when asked to talk about AIDS, sexuality and dating, our subjects didn't talk very much about sex, per se. Parents may not understand that they need to be more specific in explaining these things to their children. The traditional �birds and the bees' talk may not actually provide children with the basic information necessary to protect themselves from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases."

She also notes that the research results suggest that public service announcements that urge parents to talk with their children about sex probably are too broad. That message doesn't help parents understand that, if they want to teach responsible sexuality, they need to be more specific in explaining their views.

Lefkowitz adds that when the mothers in the study did become more specific, they often brought up the subject of abstinence but also included discussion of condoms, having your partner tested for sexually transmitted diseases, limiting the number of partners, not having sex with HIV positive people, and not having sex with prostitutes.

The results also showed that the more often the participants attended religious services, the less likely they were to include safer sex topics in their discussion.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to Dr. Marian Sigman and an Individual Research Service Award to Dr. Eva Lefkowitz.

EDITORS: Dr. Lefkowitz is at 814-863-7005 or EXL20@psu.edu by email.