These were being make, passiveness or unassertiveness, and a father who avoids conflict with a teenage child. Parental guidance on safer sexual practices, skillful assertion, negotiation and resolution of conflicts all help improve dating communication between teenagers. But parents' strategies in solving everyday conflicts and issues with teenage children may be the true basis for the safe-sex negotiations in their dating. Parents who actively engage in open disagreement with their teenage children may induce confidence in their children to assert themselves and communicate their preference with a sexual partner regarding the use of condoms. These strategies are likely to develop from safe-sex communication with parents (Feingold). Parental Processes and Style

The Kaiser Family Foundation surveys suggested that teenagers whose parents monitor their children's whereabouts and particular behaviors tend to have only one sexual partner or avoid unprotected sex (Howell, 2001). A combination of high-level communication and parental monitoring works well with adolescent females. Peer influence may be strong factor in the case of adolescent males. Interaction effects underscore the complexity of parenting processes. The process within which parents and their teenager children influence one another is likewise complex. Other findings emphasize that parental monitoring may assert positive influence on the lives of adolescent males and females. Another study revealed parental monitoring is usually more effective on girls than on boys. Researchers believed that girls are more likely to share information with parents and thus reduce the need for parents to ask them to make an accounting. Other factors may affect the effectiveness of parental monitoring, such as youth disclosure and peer factors (Howell).

Parents as Sex Educators

Researchers, which explored this subject, found that parents' level of comfort in discussing sexuality was most significant in effectively communicating with their children on the matter (Howell, 2001). Adolescents who relate or discuss more on sex education also have better communication with their mothers. These teenagers re also more satisfied with family...

They see their mother as the better educator between their parents. Daughters often perceive mothers more positively than sons as the better sex educator. Parents often see themselves as positive sex educators than do their teenage children. Yet the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy stated that more than a third of surveyed teens had not had a single conversation of this kind with their parents about sex (Howell).
Parental monitoring is parental knowledge of their child's whereabouts, activities and friend Howell, 2001). Findings of studies consistently suggested that poor parental monitoring results in risky sexual behavior and indirectly permitted association with deviant peers. Furthermore, parent availability, family structure, the number of parent figures and those at home all influence risky sexual behavior in adolescents (Howell).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aspen (2009). Sexual promiscuity in adolescents. Fact Sheets. Aspen Education Group.

Retrieved on July 21, 2011 from http://www.aspeneducation.com/factsheetpromiscuity.html

Feingold, A. (2006). Parents can help reduce sexual risk-taking. PsychCentral:

PsychCentral.com. Retrieved on July 21, 2011 from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/parents-can-help-teens-reduce-sexual-risk-taking

Howell, L.W. (2001). Examining the relationship between adolescent sexual communication and adolescents' perspectives of monitoring, communication and parenting styles in the home. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Retrieved on July 21, 2011 from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-06062001-211220/unrestricted/theses.pdf

Mellanby A. et al. (1993). Teenagers, sex and risk-taking. Vol 307 British Medical

Journal: Department of Public Health Medicine. Retrieved on July 21, 2011 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1678964/pdf/bmj0003800556.pdf

Ponton, L. (2001). The sex lives of teenagers. Vol 17 number 10 The Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter: The Brown University. Retrieved on July 21, 2011 from http://www.nvcc, edu/home/green/PowerWeb05/The%2520Sex%2520Lives%2520of%2520Teenagers.pdf