The transition from high school to university-based education is one many students anticipate with a variety of emotions, ranging from the obvious excitement associated with a new phase in life to nervousness concerning the novel opportunities that await. Simultaneously, the parents and guardians of these students experience a comparable breadth of emotion, all stemming from the desire that their child excel in their new setting as, for the most part, independent adults. It is assumed that many parents will be especially nervous about how their student engages in behavior related to substance use and sexual activity, but relatively little literature exists delineating these levels of concern. This study aimed to characterize parental concerns related to substance use and sexual activity, in particular sexual assault, and how these concerns vary between parents of sons and parents of daughters.
The study’s sample was composed of 452 parents of soon to be enrolled students at a large midwestern university who were recruited at a student orientation event (N=452, avg. age = 50.01, SD Age = 4.98, 69.7% mothers). 50.8% of the parents were identified as having daughters, while the remaining 49.2% were identified as having sons. The study participants completed a survey detailing their demographics, parent-child relationship quality, and degrees of concern related to alcohol use, drug use, and sexual assault. With each concern variable, parents were also asked how often they engaged in discussions with their child on the specific subject (i.e., “How often have you talked with your child about recreational drug use?”). Independent sample t-tests and ordinal regression analysis were used to analyze the survey data for differences and trends.
Results of the study found that 39.8% of parents demonstrated concerns related to alcohol use, and 28.6% demonstrated alcohol-related concerns as it pertained to sexual assault. On the same note, 85% discussed alcohol use with their child in the preceding 6 months, while less than half of that proportion (34.5%) discussed sexual assault. A relatively low 18.1% of parents reported concerns related to recreational drug use, though 73.5% did discuss the matter with their child. When examining differences between parents of sons and parents of daughters, it was found that parents of sons were significantly more concerned about alcohol and drug use (p<0.001 for each variable), and parents of daughters were significantly more concerned about sexual assault (p<0.001). This same trend held constant for how often parents of sons and daughters communicated about each of the three topics with their child (parents of sons talked more about alcohol and recreational drug use, etc.). Relationship quality was only shown to positively affect the frequency of parent-child communication regarding sexual assault.
Takeaway: this study found that approximately half as many parents discussed sexual assault with their children as compared to discussing alcohol or recreational drug use. It is imperative that this proportion increase, and efforts ought to be encouraged to facilitate sexual assault discussions between parents and their children due to the widespread nature and comprehensive damage that sexual assault has on students’ lives.
Vaughan EL, Limas EF, McKean Blackwell N, Klann EM, Robbins MJ. Parental Concerns About Students’ Transition Into College: Substance Use and Sexual Assault. J Interpers Violence. 2021;36(1-2):NP96-NP114. doi:10.1177/0886260517731787