The study, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that parents in the US who went to lunch-hour parenting programmes at work were more likely to discuss new sexual topics and were more open to communication about sex with their children.
A total of 569 California-based parents of 11- to 16-year-olds took part in the study, with each chosen at random to either attend a parenting programme or not.
Mark Shuster, leader of the study, which was carried out by Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, and the UCLA/RAND Centre for Adolescent Health Promotion, said: We’d teach them some skills one week, and they’d come back the next week bubbling over with excitement that they’d talked with their teen about relationships, love, or sex – their teen had actually engaged in a real conversation with them, or role-played a topic like how to say no to unwanted sexual advances.
Shuster added previous research showed children whose parents talked to them about sex were more likely to delay intercourse, use contraception and have fewer partners.
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