For many dads, talking with their teenager about sex and relationships can feel like a minefield.
Popular culture doesn’t provide many good examples of how to have these conversations, and many fathers didn’t have these conversations at all with their own fathers.
For instance, in a 2021 study from Australia, 65% of fathers reported inviting their children to talk with them about sexuality, while less than 30% reported that their own fathers talked with them about it – a jump of 35% in one generation. This finding aligns with my own U.S.-based work, which finds a similar generational discrepancy.
This huge cultural shift is fascinating to me as a research scientist who studies adolescent development, sexual health and risk-taking, and family communication about sexuality and relationships. I’m a research scientist. In recent years I have delved into the role that fathers play, why that’s important, and what fathers need to support their teens’ sexual health.
Generational differences
Compared to fathers from the 1980s, current fathers are more actively involved in raising their children and see their parenting role as a meaningful one beyond serving as a financial provider. A 2026 paper from the American Institute for Boys and Men found that since the pandemic, college-educated dads have increased their time doing housework and childcare by over four hours a week.
Research shows these changes can make a difference. When parents work together to parent their children, children show stronger attachment to their parents and improved capacity to manage their emotions. This also applies to divorced parents, whose children show fewer mental health problems when their parents cooperate with each other.
eyecrave productions/E+ via Getty Images
Benefits for both fathers and teens
Fathers’ increased involvement in parenting extends to talking with their teens about sex and relationships, and research shows that both fathers and teens see benefits to this.
Fathers see it as key to supporting their teens’ healthy development, while teens value their fathers’ perspectives and experiences. While many fathers worry that their daughters don’t want to talk with them about sex and relationships, research shows that daughters want to hear from their fathers about these topics.
Sometimes the role that fathers play in talking about sex and relationships shows up in how they work together with their spouse. Collaboration in parenting extends to talking with their teens about sex and relationships. In a qualitative study of fathers with adolescent children, over 75% of participants described talking with their teen’s mother about sex and relationships. This often involved strategizing about how to talk with their adolescent about sexual issues or updating each other as to what they learned about their adolescent.
Beyond the general benefits of connecting with their kids, father-teen conversations about sex and relationships can protect teens from risky sexual behavior.
However, many fathers are unsure how to start these conversations, feel uncomfortable talking with their teens or don’t realize that their involvement matters. Compared to mothers, fathers have fewer resources to support these conversations, ranging from a lack of sex education programs to support fathers’ communication with their teens to less access to informal connections – such as moms’ often extensive text message chains – where they can discuss these topics.
Support for dads
Only a few programs specifically support fathers to talk with their teens about sex and relationships. These programs integrate feedback from fathers on what kinds of help they want and need to support talking with their teens about sexual topics. This includes tips for how to approach the topic with teens as well as opportunities to talk with other fathers.
For example, The REAL Men program is an in-person group intervention that provides fathers with sexual health information, guidance on how to talk with their teens about sex, and take-home activities to do with their teens. Another program for fathers, called IMARA – short for informed, motivated, aware and responsible about AIDS – was adapted from an HIV prevention program for mothers and daughters.
I lead a team that developed an online program called Connected Dads, Healthy Teens. It includes sexual health information, skill-building and practice talking with teens, as well as a peer support group for fathers to share tips, experiences and challenges in talking with their kids about sex and relationships.
Fathers and teens who participated in this program showed improvements in sexual health knowledge and confidence in and frequency of sexual health communication. These programs can help provide fathers with tools and confidence to talk with their teens in healthy ways about sex and relationships.
Communication from parents is most likely to lead to healthy teens when parents are knowledgeable, comfortable, trustworthy and responsive to their teens.
Similarly, teens prefer to talk with parents about sex when they see them as understanding, open and easy to talk to. As these findings suggest, many of the effective and engaging approaches fathers can use to talk with their teens about sex overlap with skills fathers already use to talk with their teens about other topics.
Connected Dads, Healthy Teens program, Wellesley Centers for Women
Listen first
So, when opportunity presents itself, take time to listen to your teen’s perspective before telling them your own, and try to restrain yourself from judging your teen for their relationship choices.
These approaches can help teens feel heard, validated and connected and make it more likely they will come to you when they have questions or concerns in the future.
And while it’s important to stay in the game and talk with your teen about sex and relationships, think about other trusted adults in your teen’s life who can join the conversation. Other people, such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings, coaches and religious leaders, can be supportive resources for talking with teens about these issues.
If you think you may not be the best person to talk with your teen about a specific topic, such as getting their period or a conflict in a dating relationship, consider reaching out to another person whom your teen feels comfortable with and providing background support for their conversations. This can help you stay engaged and be an active participant in promoting your teen’s health.
Though dads play an important role, it’s not all on them – or on any single person – to be there for their teen. The more supportive connections teens have in their families, schools and communities, the healthier they are.
