October 08, 2026, Durham, NC – Every October, Let’s Talk Month encourages parents and caregivers to have open, honest conversations with young people about sex, relationships, bodies, and sexual health. This event is an important reminder that parent-child communication about sex should go beyond a one-time “Talk” or the mechanics of sex. Young people need on-going opportunities to talk about consent, boundaries, healthy relationships, peer pressure, norms, bystander intervention, media portrayals of sex, and how to respond when situations become uncomfortable or unsafe.

Talking about sex and consent can feel daunting or uncomfortable for parents, but resources can help them make these conversations an ongoing part of family communication rather than relying solely on school-based sex education or a one-time conversation.

Consent Education Starts Earlier Than We May Think

Teaching consent does not have to begin with a serious conversation about sex during adolescence. It can start much earlier through everyday experiences that teach children that their boundaries matter and that other people’s boundaries matter too. For example, parents can teach children that they do not have to hug someone when they do not want to, that “stop” should be respected even during play, and that they need to respect another person’s “no.”

As children grow, those lessons can evolve into conversations about dating, sexual consent, communication, and healthy relationships. Media can provide natural, low-pressure, safe opportunities for parents to help youth think through situations involving sex and relationships. For example, pausing after a scene in a movie to ask, “What would you do in that situation?” or “How could those characters have handled that differently?” A storyline in a television show, something a child sees on social media, a song, an advertisement, or a news story can become an opportunity to ask what they think and talk through the messages they are receiving.

Helping Parents Start and Continue the Conversation

Knowing these conversations are important does not necessarily make them easy. Parents may worry about saying the wrong thing, giving too much information, making their child uncomfortable, or simply not knowing how to begin. In addition, today’s parents are helping adolescents navigate a media environment that introduces messages about sex, relationships, gender roles, alcohol, and other substances from countless sources.

That is one reason iRT developed Media Aware Parent.

Media Aware Parent is an online resource designed to help parents strengthen their media literacy and communication skills so they can have meaningful conversations with their teens about sex, relationships, and media. Rather than giving parents a script for one long, serious conversation, the program helps them develop skills they can use as new questions, situations, and media messages arise in everyday conversations.

Resources for Parents

The goal of healthy parent-child communication about sex and relationships is not for parents to have every answer or cover every topic in one conversation. It is to establish an ongoing relationship in which young people know that questions about relationships, sex, consent, and media are topics they can bring home.

This Let’s Talk Month, explore and share these resources with parents that guide meaningful, ongoing conversations with youth about sex, consent, and healthy relationships.