Mother– and Father–Adolescent Relationships and Early Sexual Intercourse

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To assess the prospective associations between mother-adolescent and fatheradolescent relationship quality and early sexual intercourse initiation (ie, ≤16 years) among a large sample of Dutch adolescents. METHODS:Two waves of data from the Rotterdam Youth Monitor, a longitudinal study in the Netherlands, were used. The analysis sample consisted of 2931 adolescents aged 12 to 16 years (Mean age@T1 = 12.5 years, SD = 0.61; Mean age@T2 = 14.3 years, SD = 0.60). Variables were assessed by means of self-report questionnaires. Prospective associations between mother-adolescent and father-adolescent relationships and early sexual initiation were assessed by logistic regression analyses, stratified by gender, controlling for various potential confounders. RESULTS:We found that only girls (not boys) having a higher-quality relationship with mothers were significantly less likely to have initiated early sexual intercourse between T1 and T2. Bivariate findings showed that both girls and boys having a higher-quality relationship with their father at T1 were significantly less likely to have engaged in early sexual intercourse between T1 and T2, but when assessed multivariately, these associations were no longer significant, neither for boys nor for girls. CONCLUSIONS:Our findings suggest that a higher-quality relationship between adolescents and their parents, especially between mothers and daughters, may help to protect against early sexual initiation. Pediatricians and other health care professionals should be able to explain to parents that early sexual intercourse initiation can be associated with negative health outcomes, but that parents can play an important role in promoting healthy sexual behaviors.

Longitudinal Associations Between Sexual Communication With Friends and Sexual Behaviors Through Perceived Sexual Peer Norms

“…Finally, not finding any gender differences in any of the hypothesized associations is in line with previous studies conducted in the Netherlands (Nogueira Avelar e Silva et al, 2016, 2018Van de Bongardt et al, 2014). Perhaps, the culture of sexual double standards, in which boys and girls are generally incentivized to have different sexual behaviors by society is less expressive in this country, which might contribute to less evident gender differences in adolescents' sexual behaviors and socio-contextual correlates thereof (Kreager & Staff, 2009).…”

“…Different ecological systems theories, for example, emphasize that both individual factors (such as age, gender, ethnic background) and social factors (such as parents, peers) can affect adolescent sexual behaviors (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Parents are important protective factors of adolescent sexual health (Nogueira Avelar E Silva, Van de Bongardt, Van de Looijjansen, Wijtzes, & Raat, 2016;VVan de Bongardt et al, 2014). However, particularly during adolescence, peers (e.g., friends, classmates, age-mates) become increasingly present in adolescents' social contexts.…”

Deviant Peers and Adolescent Risky Behaviors: The Protective Effect of Nonverbal Display of Parental Warmth

“…Other forms of parentingincluding affection, communication, warmth, and monitoring-also have been inversely related to affiliation with deviant peers (De Kemp et al, 2006;Goldstein et al, 2005). A similar influence of positive parenting practice has been found with respect to adolescents' involvement in risky behaviors (De Kemp et al, 2006;Guilamo-Ramos et al, 2012;Hoeve et al, 2009; Nogueira Avelar e Silva, van de Bongardt, van de Looij-Jansen, Wijtzes, & Raat, 2016) and has been attributed to less dependency on peers, more acceptance of parental values, and the fostering of adolescents' emotion regulation (McAdams et al, 2017;Pardini et al, 2015).…”

“…Sex differences with respect to parents are also observed in previous research. Both mothers' and fathers' support are independently associated with adolescents' lower levels of risky behaviors (Boyd, Ashcraft, & Belgrave, 2006;Nogueira Avelar e Silva et al, 2016). However, when it comes to buffering the negative impact of peers on adolescent risky behaviors, the relative influence of mothers and fathers is unclear.…”

Construcción Yvalidación De Una Escala De Socialización Sexual Paterna Por Dominios

“…Las prácticas parentales para la SS favorecen la alfabetización sexual en los hijos, es decir, informan, desarrollan habilidades de prevención y una actitud positiva hacia vivir una vida sexual saludable (Oluwatosin y Famoriyo, 2014); por tanto, se torna relevante identificar aquellas prácticas parentales de SS que la promueven. Las revisiones de Kotchick et al (2001) y Newman et al (2008), y los meta-análisis de Dittus et al (2015) y Widman et al (2016), así como los estudios de Jaccard et al (1996) y Nogueira-Avelar e Silva et al (2016) muestran que las prácticas parentales de SS de mayor impacto son la supervisión, la comunicación sexual verbal y la calidad/cercanía de la relación entre padres e hijos. Lo anterior no quiere decir que son las únicas prácticas parentales de SS que los padres utilizan, por el contrario, el espectro de comportamientos parentales para la SS es muy amplio; por ejemplo, el modelado de conductas y actitudes referidas al sexo (Kotchick et al, 2001), el ejercicio del control psicológico y la disciplina para proteger a los hijos (Kincaid et al, 2012), el rechazo y desaprobación de acciones y actitudes sobre el coito (Jaccard et al, 1996;Bersamin et al, 2008), la permisividad sexual (Lottes y Kuriloff, 2010), el control parental de los medios de comunicación y restricción de contenidos para adultos (Bersamin et al, 2008) así como la regulación para la forma de vestir, las relaciones con amigos, pareja y las salidas nocturnas, las citas y el noviazgo (Kim, 2009), la aplicación de normas sobre amigos (Dittus et al, 2015), la comunicación no verbal sobre sexo (Ward y Wyatt, 1994), solo por mencionar algunas.…”