Devoted dad key to reducing risky teen sex
Moms help, but an involved father has twice
the influence, new study finds
By Linda Carroll
msnbc.com contributor
updated 8:10 a.m. ET
June 5, 2009
When it comes to preventing risky teen sex,
there may be no better deterrent than a doting dad.
Teenagers whose fathers are more involved
in their lives are less likely to engage in risky sexual activities
such as unprotected intercourse, according to a new study.
The more attentive the dad — and the more
he knows about his teenage child's friends — the bigger the impact
on the teen's sexual behavior, the researchers found. While an
involved mother can also help stave off a teen’s sexual activity,
dads have twice the influence.
“Maybe there’s something different about
the way fathers and adolescents interact,” said the study’s lead
author Rebekah Levine Coley, an associate professor at Boston
College. “It could be because it’s less expected for fathers to be
so involved, so it packs more punch when they are.”
Understanding a father's influence in teen
sexual behavior is important, experts say. One in four American
adolescents under the age of 15 has had sexual intercourse and, by
age 18, two-thirds have had sex, according to research. The concern
is, many sexually active young people aren’t using protection, a
contributing factor in rising teen birth rates. Approximately
750,000 teenagers become pregnant each year and about 3 in 10
teenage girls become pregnant at least once before age 20, according
to government statistics.
For the new study, which was published in
the journal Child Development, Coley and her colleagues surveyed
3,206 teens, ages 13 to 18, once a year for four years. The teens,
who all came from two-parent homes, were asked about their sexual
behaviors and about their relationships with their parents.
Researchers posed a series of questions
about both mothers and fathers, such as “how much does s/he know
about whom you are with when you are not at home?” The teens were
also asked how often they interacted with their parents in
activities such as eating dinner, playing games or attending
religious activities.
Dad's positive effect
Parental knowledge of a teen’s friends and activities was rated on a
five point scale. When it came to the dads, each point higher in
parental knowledge translated into a 7 percent lower rate of sexual
activity in the teen. For the moms, one point higher in knowledge
translated to a 3 percent lower rate of teen sexual activity.
The impact of family time overall was even
more striking. One additional family activity per week predicted a 9
percent drop in sexual activity.
Child development experts said the study
was carefully done and important. “It’s praiseworthy by any
measure,” said Alan E. Kazdin, a professor of psychology and child
psychiatry at Yale University. “The strength of this study is that
it helps us identify the children who might be engaging in risky
sexual behavior.”
Why would dads have a more powerful
influence?
“Dads vary markedly in their roles as
caretakers from not there at all to really helping moms,” Kazdin
said. “The greater impact of dads might be that moms are more of a
constant and when dads are there their impact is magnified.”
Also, Kazdin said “when dads are involved
with families, the stress on the mom is usually reduced because of
the diffusion of child-rearing or the support for the mom."
In other words, dad's positive effect on
mom makes life better for the child, Kazdin explains.
The study underscores the importance of
parental engagement overall, said Patrick Tolan, a professor of
psychiatry and director of the Institute for Juvenile Research at
the University of Illinois in Chicago.
“For one thing, the more time you spend
with them, the less time they’re going to be on their own in places
where they can get into risky behavior,” Tolan explained. “Also, if
you’re spending time talking to them, they’re going to get your
values and they’re more likely to think things through rather than
acting impulsively.”
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But simply requiring more family dinners
won't necessarily reduce the risk that a teen will engage in
unprotected sex. The families that are spending more time together
may be different in some way from those that are spending less: they
may simply be warmer and have closer ties, Kazdin said. If the kids
are avoiding their parents because the atmosphere in the home is
tense, adding more together time isn’t going to help, Kazdin said.
Coley hopes that the study will encourage
both moms and dads to keep trying to connect with their teenage
children, even as their kids are pushing them away.
“While it’s normal for teens to want to
pull away from the family, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to
engage at all,” Coley said. “It’s extremely important to continue to
do things together. And it’s up to parents to set the expectations
and standards when it comes to spending time together. It doesn’t
have to be anything fancy or expensive."
Linda Carroll is a health and science
writer living in New Jersey. Her work has appeared in The New York
Times, Newsday, Health magazine and SmartMoney.
© 2009 msnbc.com.
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