I recently found a number of excellent resources on abstinence education while preparing for a television interview on the subject. An article on the influence of parents called Teen Sex: The Parent Factor by Christine Kim of the Heritage Foundation is enlightening. If parents understood how influential they are, perhaps more attention may be paid to cultivating the parent-child relationship. Of particular importance are an intact family structure, parent's disapproval of adolescent sex, the level of parental involvement in their children's lives and the quality of the parent-child relationship.
Considerable information on the consequences of early teen sexual activity is also included for example, "Engaging in early sexual activity elevates the risk of teenage girls becoming pregnant and single mothers. Girls who become sexually active during early adolescence are three times as likely to become single mothers as those who remain abstinent throughout their teenage years. Nearly 40 percent of girls who begin sexual activity at ages 13 or 14 will give birth outside marriage, compared to 9 percent of those who remain abstinent until their early twenties.[7]"Teen Sex: The Parent Factor:
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