Adolescent age level and gender Fathers Preadolescent Sons (n = 37) Daughters (n = 29) Early adolescent Sons (n = 19) Daughters (n = 27) Middle adolescent Sons (n = 44) Daughters (n = 29) Late adolescent Sons (n = 21) Daughters (n = 13) p Mothers Preadolescent Sons (n = 92) Daughters (n = 93) Early adolescent Sons (n = 108) Daughters (n = 101) Middle adolescent Sons (n = 84) Daughters (n = 99) Late adolescent Sons (n = 62) Daughters (n = 48) p 78.9 84.6 .024 54.1 62.1 78.9 66.7 88.6 75.9 52.2 53.8 73.8 84.2 83.3 88.9 75.8 87.8 .000 81.0 76.9 .000 21.6 16.7 57.9 48.1 75.0 70.0 25.3 26.9 53.7 67.3 75.0 76.8 75.8 89.8 .000 80.0 76.9 .000 27.0 31.0 57.9 64.3 81.8 80.0 30.4 33.3 63.2 72.3 82.1 85.9 79.0 100.0 .000 81.0 92.3 .000 37.8 34.5 78.9 71.4 86.0 73.3 38.0 44.1 65.7 78.2 90.5 90.9 90.3 93.8 .000 81.0 53.8 .000 16.7 13.8 47.4 32.1 75.0 60.0 16.5 19.1 52.8 53.5 73.8 74.7 83.9 85.7 .000 11.1 0.0 30.0 23.1 59.1 35.7 45.0 38.5 .000 7.7 8.5 31.8 25.7 48.8 46.5 67.7 63.8 .000 J Youth Adolescence (2010) 39:1164–1174 1169 Table 2 Percentage of fathers and mothers who have discussed selected sex education topics with their adolescent by adolescent age level and gender Human reproduction Becoming sexually active Avoiding sex HIV/AIDS and other STIs Using protection Where to get condoms Mean # of topics STIs sexually transmitted infections. Signiﬁcance values are for Chi-square test of adolescent age level by adolescent gender the most difﬁcult part in talking with their adolescent about sex and relationships, 70.1% of parents reported experi- encing difﬁculties (absence of difﬁculties = 22.8%, miss- ing = 7.2%, N = 907). Through open coding of these responses, we identiﬁed nine categories of sexual com- munication difﬁculties. The ﬁrst category comprised difﬁculties related to embarrassment or discomfort, whether parents’ self- reported embarrassment or discomfort or perceived ado- lescent’s embarrassment or discomfort (e.g., ‘‘I think that it is just a comfort level that you feel, because it is a topic we are not in the habit of discussing’’ and ‘‘They [children] are embarrassed over girls menstruating.’’) The second cate- gory comprised difﬁculties related to knowledge and self- efﬁcacy (e.g., ‘‘It is difﬁcult for me to talk with her; I fear that I may explain something poorly to her or give her incorrect information.’’). We labeled the third category cultural and social inﬂuences or issues, which included cultural inﬂuences or issues (e.g., ‘‘I think that sexual relations are a very delicate subject due to our culture’’), societal and social environ- ment inﬂuences or issues (e.g., ‘‘The hard part is that what TV and culture are showing them is not real life; it’s me against the media’’), religious inﬂuences or issues (e.g., ‘‘Not scaring her and explaining how God sees it and how the world sees it and the difference in that’’), and gender inﬂuences or issues (e.g., ‘‘That is a certain taboo…as a father with my daughters I feel a bit uncomfortable, something that I leave in the hands of my wife and she talks with them.’’) The fourth category involved family and intergenerational inﬂuences or issues (e.g., ‘‘It’s difﬁcult for me because they never told me anything about this subject and what I learned, I learned at school because in my house one did not use to talk about this subject.’’). 1.71 1.59 3.46 3.06 4.64 3.95 4.40 4.22 1.71 1.85 3.40 3.81 4.53 4.63 4.70 5.20 123