role in helping children make good sexual decisions and act on them. It expands on earlier reviews by proposing a theoretical framework in a field that has largely been notable for its atheoretical approach, by providing methodological alternatives, by going beyond the expert-novice perspective to address communication from the young persons point of view, and by evaluating interventions designed to help parents become better communicators about this difficult, sensitive, and complex topic. It also presents new empirical work on the neglected topics of fathers involvement in sex-related communications with their children and teen-initiated communications by gay youth as they inform their parents about their sexual orientation. This is the 97th issue of the Jossey-Bass series "New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development."