Predictors of Parental Discussions with Young Children about Health and Safety

Introduction: Parent-child communication guides children’s health and safety practices. Parents of adolescents experience greater difficulty discussing personal topics (e.g., sexual behavior) than other health issues (e.g., nutrition and physical activity), although little is known about parent discussions with their younger children and the variables that facilitate these conversations. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which child age and gender, parent education level, parents’ knowing someone who had been sexually abused, and family communication and support predicted parent-child discussions of child sexual abuse (CSA) and nutrition and physical activity (NPA).

Method: The sample consisted of 586 parents of children between the ages of 3-11 years. Parents completed the General Functioning Scale of the McMaster Family Functioning Device (Epstein, Baldwin, & Bishop, 1983), which assessed family communication and support. Parents also completed the Preventive Behaviors Questionnaire (PBQ; Wurtele et al., 2008) about CSA discussions, and an adapted version of the PBQ to assess communication about NPA. Furthermore, parents provided demographic information and whether they and/or anyone they knew had been sexually abused.

Results: Family communication and support, and parents’ personal experience with CSA, parents’ knowing someone who was sexually abused, child age, and parent education level were significant predictors in the multivariate multiple regression analysis. Predictor variables explained 13.2% of the variance for discussions of CSA and 6.2% of the variance in discussions of NPA. Family communication and support predicted both discussions of CSA and NPA. In addition, parents’ education level, personal experience of CSA, and knowing someone who was sexually abused predicted CSA discussions, whereas no other variables predicted discussions of NPA. Parents’ knowing someone who was sexually abused moderated the relationship between family communication and support and parent-child discussions of CSA.

Conclusions: Family functioning (specifically family communication and support) predicted the extent to which parents of young children discuss topics of health and safety, which was particularly important in discussing CSA. Parents’ education and personal and vicarious experience with CSA also predicted conversations about CSA, possibly due to parents’ motivation to protect their children based on perceived vulnerability to this threat.