Parenting influences on adolescent sexual risk-taking: Differences by child welfare placement status

Marina Haddock Potter and Sarah A. Font

Children and Youth Services Review, 2019, vol. 96, issue C, 134-144

Abstract: Positive parenting behaviors and parent-child relationships reduce sexual risk-taking among youth, but these associations may differ for adolescents in the child welfare system. Using two cohorts of a national longitudinal dataset of youth, the authors employed linear probability modeling to investigate associations of caregiver-child closeness, monitoring, and dating communication with youth's sexual initiation, sexual partners, and unprotected intercourse over the subsequent 12 months. Moderation by placement status (non-relative foster care, kinship care, or birth parent care) was then tested. Closeness was negatively associated with risk-taking. Monitoring was positively associated with new sexual partners among youth in birth parent care, but negatively associated with new partners for youth in out-of-home care. Dating communication was positively associated with sexual initiation and additional sexual partners, and with unsafe sex among non-relative foster youth. In sum, caregiver relationships and parenting behaviors may matter differently for maltreated and foster youths' sexual risk-taking.

Keywords: Child Welfare System; Adolescents; Parenting; Sexual risk-taking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:96:y:2019:i:c:p:134-144

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.11.038

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