Family Activities to Promote
Parent-Child Connectedness

In a recent report published by SIECUS titled "Innovative Approaches to Increase Parent-Child Communication about Sexuality: Their Impact and Example from the Field," sexuality education homework assignments were cited as a promising intervention because of their success in encouraging students and their parents to talk about sexuality related issues.

Homework assignments may involve many more parents than other parent interventions (e.g., workshops, newsletters) because so many students are motivated to complete homework assignments.

This month's learning activity provides ReCAPP users with a set of three homework assignments or "family activities" taken from ETR's Wait for Sex after-school program for middle school youth. Wait for Sex family activities are short take-home assignments designed for youth and parents to complete together. The family activities provided in this issue are:

• Goal Setting
• Puberty
• Abstinence
  

The purpose of these activities is three-fold:

1. to encourage parent-child communication about goal setting, puberty and abstinence,
   
2. to reinforce key messages about these topics from after-school sessions, and
   
3. to give parents a way to be involved with the Wait for Sex program.

For context, the Wait for Sex after-school sessions corresponding to the family activities are also provided as pdf documents. These are:

• Wait for Sex Session 4 on Goal Setting
• Wait for Sex Session 12 on Puberty and Growing Up, and
• Wait for Sex Session 16 on Abstinence
  
  Note: Links on this page with the Portable Document Format icon (pdf) require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print them. You can download this free software at: http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
  

Keep in mind that not all youth can talk to their parents about sexuality-related issues for a variety of reasons. If you decide to use or adapt the family activities presented here, give youth the alternative of talking to a parent or another trusted adult.

For more information about the SIECUS report, contact SIECUS at www.siecus.org or 202-462-2340.

The development of the Wait for Sex program was funded by the federal Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs (OAPP). For more information about the Wait for Sex program, contact Lori Rolleri at lorir@etr.org.

---

Join our mailing list - ReCAPPNotes! Copyright © 2007 ETR Associates. All rights reserved. Disclaimer