Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021;33(1):99-108.
doi: 10.1080/19317611.2020.1858381. Epub 2020 Dec 26.

Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Parent-Child Discussions about Sexual Behaviors

Coral L Shuster  1 , Christopher D Houck  1 , Erin M Tooley  1
Affiliations

Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Parent-Child Discussions about Sexual Behaviors

Coral L Shuster et al. Int J Sex Health. 2021.

Abstract

Risky sexual behavior can lead to negative outcomes (e.g., pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections). Adolescents may engage in risky sex less often if families talk about sexual safety or if adolescents engage in emotion regulation (ER) skills, however research is lacking on how ER may be a barrier to sexual health communication. This exploratory study was a secondary analysis of baseline information from 420 American adolescents referred for mental health symptoms and their parents regarding ER and sexual health communication. Significant differences emerged on adolescent ER between families that talk about sexual health and those that do not.

Keywords: adolescents; sexual attitudes and behaviors; sexual communication.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Boysen, G. A. (2017). Stigma toward people with mental illness as potential sexual and romantic partners. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 3(3), 212–223. 10.1007/s40806-017-0089-5 - DOI
    1. Brown, L. K., Houck, C. D., Donenberg, G., Emerson, E., Donahue, K., & Misbin, J. (2013). Affect management for HIV prevention with adolescents in therapeutic schools: The immediate impact of project balance. AIDS and Behavior, 17(8), 2773–2780. 10.1007/s10461-013-0599-5 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brown, L. K., Nugent, N. R., Houck, C. D., Lescano, C. M., Whiteley, L. B., Barker, D. H., Viau, L., & Zlotnick, C. (2011). Safe thinking and affect regulation (STAR): Human immunodeficiency virus prevention in alternative/therapeutic schools. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 50(10), 1065–1074. 10.1016/j.jaac.2011.06.018 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Crespo, L. M., Trentacosta, C. J., Aikins, D., & Wargo-Aikins, J. (2017). Maternal emotion regulation and children’s behavior problems: The mediating role of child emotion regulation. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(10), 2797–2809. 10.1007/s10826-017-0791-8 - DOI
    1. De Looze, M., Constantine, N. A., Jerman, P., Vermeulen-Smit, E., & Bogt, T. (2015). Parent-adolescent sexual communication and its association with adolescent sexual behaviors: A nationally representative analysis in the Netherlands. Journal of Sex Research, 52(3), 257–268. 10.1080/00224499.2013.858307 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources