Learning to Have ‘The Sex Talk’ At Work?

Whether you are one or ten years away from having the dreaded sex talk with your children, it is still scary enough to send shivers down the most courageous of spines. Even in the open society we live in today, sex is still a taboo subject, especially on the home front and especially when it is the parent who has to do all the talking and teaching. However, a new study published this year in the British Medical Journal is giving parents and guardians hope that these conversations do not have to be as difficult as once thought. Research has demonstrated that a new parenting project learned at the workplace could put an end to the fear and anxiety.   

This new program called Talking Parents, Healthy Teens is a project that is geared towards parents of children in sixth to tenth grade whereby parents are trained to overcome their fears on the subject of sex and learn how to best approach the conversation with their children. Mark A. Schuster, the chief of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital in Boston, headed the team that studied the almost 600 participants. These participants worked in large corporations throughout southern California and committed to attending eight weekly sessions during their lunchtime. The parents met in groups of 15 and utilized exercises such as role-playing in order to learn how to first broach the topic, how to converse on taboo sexual topics that would normally leave both parent and child squirming and how to overcome any hurdles that might occur, such as the tendency for teenagers to clam up.   

To make this program more successful, participants were taught to actively listen to their children; this approach helps parents avoid interrupting and lecturing their children (common parent traps that immediately send most teenagers into lockdown mode). Parents were also trained in ways to teach their own teenagers about fundamentals like being assertive, having confidence and making decisions. Participants were encouraged to practice their newly learned skills in between meetings by discussing sex topics with their teenagers usually focused around sexually transmitted diseases, contraception and pregnancy. In terms of contraception, the program was sure to support a parent’s right to encourage either abstinence, contraception use or both. Schuster was very positive about the program, “The great thing was that the parents really learned. We’d teach them some skills one week, and they’d come back the next week bubbling over with excitement that they’d talked with their teen about relationships, love, or sex, and–this was the best part–their teen had actually engaged in a real conversation with them, or role-played a topic like how to say no to unwanted sexual advances.” Schuster goes on to say that “Parents are desperate for advice on how to talk with their kids about sex. I get pulled aside in the clinic, at schools, at the park. They know it’s important, but their own parents didn’t talk with them, so they don’t know where to begin. Even other physicians sheepishly ask what to say to their own kids.” Surveys conducted both weeks and months after the completion of the program have shown that effects were both immediate and positive.