Parent-adolescent communication about sex and adolescent sexting behaviors

The term “sexting” refers to sexually suggestive and/or explicit messages exchanged in one-to-one or one-to-many forms over Internet-enabled devices. According to the multisystem perspective, parent-adolescent communication influences sexual socialization globally and sexting locally. In the present study, a model of the relationships among the breadth of sex topics discussed between parents and adolescent children, comfort in parent-adolescent sexual communication, and adolescent sexting is evaluated. U.S. nationally representative data were gathered from 592 parents and their adolescent children. The results demonstrated that for both adolescents and parents, a wider array of sex topics discussed is associated with increased comfort in parent-adolescent sexual communication. Additionally, increased comfort in parent-adolescent sexual communication is associated with lower incidence of adolescent sexting. Equivalent alternative models that rearrange the variables of interest did not fit the data. These findings contribute to the conceptualization of parent-adolescent sexual communication by delineating between content (i.e., “what is talked about”) and process (i.e., “how it is talked about”) components. Theoretical contributions involve expanding the multisystem perspective of adolescent sexual behaviors to include technologically mediated risks and introducing communication comfort as a regulatory mechanism between message exchange and effects.