Good parent-teen relationships, and family routine both help to encourage delayed sex among teens, according to a new report by US think-tank, Child Trends. 

The report, Parents Matter: The Role of Parents in Teens’ Decisions about Sex, shows that good parenting practices can increase the likelihood of teenagers delaying sexual activity. 

In particular, better parent-adolescent relationships are associated with reduced risk of early sexual experience among teen girls. 

Teen girls who reported high relationship quality with both parents were less likely to have sex at an early age (22 per cent), compared with teen girls who reported low relationship quality with both parents (37 percent). 

This was also true for teen girls’ relationships with their mothers and fathers separately. No significant association was found for teen boys. 

However, the report found that teen boys who eat dinner with their family every day have a lower probability of having sex before age 16 (31 per cent), compared with those who eat dinner with their family four days a week or less (37 per cent). 

This particular routine did not have any significant impact in terms of the likelihood of teenage girls engaging in sexual intercourse before 16. 

The report also found that adolescents whose parents were aware of whom they are with when not at home are less likely to have sex by age 16. 

For example, only 22 per cent of girls who reported that their parents knew “everything” about whom they were with when they were not home had first sex before age 16, compared with 43 per cent who reported their parents knew little or nothing. 

The findings “highlight the importance of parents in adolescents’ lives,” said study co-author Jennifer Manlove, Ph.D. 

“Parents can be involved beyond having the ‘sex talk’ with their adolescents – by fostering strong relationships, developing family routines such as eating dinner together regularly, and being aware of where their children are when they are not at home.”