Of course it took Harvard to figure this out, but it seems, from a small sample of racially and ethnically diverse parents and kids, that parents are missing the boat when it comes to timing their sex talks with kids. This study is unique in that rather than being a retrospective account of when parents talked to kids, it was concurrent.
The researchers surveyed parents about the timing of dicsussion of different sex related topics with the stage of sexual activity they thought their kids had experienced.The kids did the same thing – except they reported the sexual activity they had engaged in at the time of the conversation.
Guess what? Time and again, the parents underestimated the level of sexual activity their kids had engaged in. For example, a parent talked to their child about wet dreams and said they thought their child had been kissed. The child reported they had experienced genital touching. Whoops!
Bottom line. Start talking about everything before they’re sexually active. It will serve them well.
Check out the charts! https://developingchild.harvard.edu/
