Marriage Matters

The Influence of Parents on Their Child’s Sexuality

This article was posted on: April 7, 2020

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Parents have a tremendous amount of influence over the sexual choices their child will make. According to social science research:

• Children are less likely to become sexually active at an early age if their parents maintain a relationship of attachment, involvement, and communication with them.

• The more education parents have the more likely they will discourage early initiation of sexual activity for their adolescent children.

• A father’s involvement with his children discourages adolescent sexual activity for boys and a mother’s involvement lowers it for girls.

• The higher the level of parents’ education, the less likely are their children become teenage parents.

• Girls whose fathers are not employed full time are more likely to have had sexual intercourse in early adolescence.

Your education and the time you give your children have very positive effects on them. Do you always have something new you are learning? Could you give your child some more of your time?

As seen in the accompanying chart, young adults are more likely to make poor sexual choices if they do not have parents who worship. A worshipping family provides stability and love for young people as they develop, making risky sexuality less appealing.

For links to the research behind these statements, please visit www.marri.us/one-pagers/ *It bears emphasizing that these patterns hold for the groups involved, not for all the individuals who make up each group. There is naturally a wide variation among individuals.

http://marri.us/wp-content/uploads/The-Influence-of-Parents-on-Their-Childs-Sexuality.pdf

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