Parent Communication About Sexual Assault and Consent

Despite recommendations, education about consent and sexual violence is rare in K-12 sex education programs. Parents can play a highly meaningful role in communicating with their children lessons about consent and sexual assault. However, messaging about sexual violence from parents may reproduce gendered dynamics that promote and reinforce stereotypes. Parents may also have limited knowledge about sexual violence and potentially communicate inaccurate information due to their own lack of education about sexual violence. In the current study, data were collected from 122 mostly White and heterosexual college students. Participants answered open-ended questions about parent communication about consent and sexual violence as well as a parent–child sex communication scale. Results show that parent communication about consent and sexual violence is not common, although parents are communicating accurate, albeit limited, information about consent. No gender differences were found for messages about consent but women were more likely to receive messages about sexual assault prevention, monitoring of their behaviors, and what to do if they were sexually assaulted. These findings suggest that greater responsibility is placed on women to not be sexually assaulted, messaging that supports rape myths about women’s culpability as well as traditional sexual scripts. The lack of communication about sexual violence with men is also concerning given that individuals of all genders experience sexual violence. This work suggests that before encouraging parents to engage in more conversations about consent and sexual violence, there is a need for parents to receive more education themselves through public programming and educational initiatives. These findings also highlight the need for expansive sex education within schools to ensure dissemination of accurate information.