Politics
Wednesday February 22, 2006
See today's LifeSiteNews stories
Canadian Teens Say Parents, Not Sex-Ed, is Best for Info on Healthy Sexuality
By Gudrun Schultz
MONTREAL, Quebec, February 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Canadian teenagers view parents as their primary source for information on sex and healthy sexuality, a new Ipsos-Reid poll reveals.
In a survey jointly conducted by the Canadian Association for Adolescent Health (CAAH) and Ipsos on the sexual behavior and knowledge of teenagers, researchers were startled to discover that a majority of teenagers identified their parents as the most valuable resource for information on sex.
“One of the most surprising results of the study was how parents underestimate their importance and the role teens expect them to play when it comes to their sexuality and sexual health,” said Dr. Miriam Kaufman, a CAAH spokesperson and paediatrician at the Adolescent Division at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, in a press release yesterday.
“Canadian teens look up to their parents and consider them a valuable source of information. We are hoping that by making this information widely known, parents will feel more comfortable breaking the wall of silence that too often exists when it comes to discussing sexuality with their children.”
Parents were identified as a major source of sex information by 63 percent of teenagers polled. Almost half (43 percent) said parents were the most useful and valuable source of information.
However, 38 percent of teens said they have not discussed sex and sexuality with their mothers.
Sex education in schools received a very low rating by teenagers—only 23 percent said they found it to be useful.
The survey also revealed an alarming lack of accurate information on sexuality among teenagers. Confusion over what constitutes sexual activity and the health hazards associated with certain sexual practices were marked among those polled, with 26 percent of teens defining abstinence as compatible with oral sex.
The poll, completed in October 2005, was conducted among 1,171 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17. The survey also incorporated information from interviews with 1,139 mothers of teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17. All interviews were conducted online. The results are considered accurate to within 2.9 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
Back to TopSHARE THIS STORY: E-mail Print Newsvine Digg Reddit Del.icio.us Facebook
Latest Headlines
- Texas Bishop Repents Publicly for Catholic Hospital Which Was Doing Sterilizations
- Poll Shows a Solid Majority of Canadians Want Legal Protection for Unborn Children
- Interview: Bishop Explains Why a Bishop "Would Consider It a Privilege to Die to End to Abortion"
- Christian-Founded Dating Website eHarmony Forced to Cater to Homosexuals
- Italian Government Must Act Fast to Define Food and Hydration as a Human Right to Save Eluana: Prominent Italian Lawyer
- Brazilian Christian Censored and Fined for Making "Homophobic" Remarks in Book
- Grandmother's Account of Traumatizing Experience with Abortion Moves Jamaican Parliamentarians to Tears
- Bush Pushes Ahead with Regulations to Protect Doctors’ Conscience Rights
- Levant Acquitted after Republishing Letter by Pastor Previously Found to Be “Hate Speech”
- The Death of Catholic Culture and the Election of Barack Obama
- Brazilian Psychologists Prohibited from Helping Catholic Church Screen Out Homosexual Priesthood Candidates
- Letters to the Editor for Friday, November 21, 2008
- US Election Message to Catholic Bishops Part III: The Broken Window Strategy
Most Read this Week
- Italian Nuns Refuse to Kill Eluana
- Lawsuits Proliferate Demanding Proof of Obama's Natural-Born Citizenship before Electoral Vote Count
- Christian Prayer Group Sexually and Physically Assaulted by Homosexual Mob
- Mormons, Knights of Columbus Face Chilling Threats and More Vandalism for Prop. 8 Support
- Vatican Cardinal: "A New World Order is Gaining Ground"
- The Coming "War" Between the Obama Administration and the Catholic Church
- Arnold Schwarzenegger's Wife: I'm "a Catholic in Good Standing" But Also Pro-abortion and Pro-Homosexual
- Obama Fortifies Administration with Team of Anti-Life, Anti-family Radicals
- Martin Luther King's Niece: Obama Election Heals "White Guilt" at the Cost of Life and Family
- Cardinal Stafford: Obama’s Anti-life Policies are “Aggressive, Disruptive, and Apocalyptic”
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.