Although parents are essential to child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention efforts, their views on prevention and protection are not always represented in the research literature. Both quantitative and qualitative findings will be presented which reinforce parental reluctance to educate their children about sexual abuse, highlighting the discrepancies between what parents espouse and their actual behaviour with their children. Findings suggest that parents have a good knowledge of CSA and its risks, however, they do not provide their children with the comprehensive prevention messages recommended by prevention campaigns and many concentrate on abduction dangers. This gap between knowledge and parental communication with children could be due to parents' beliefs that there may be harms associated with education of children about CSA (e.g., such as inciting new fears and worries or reducing trust in others) and that the method may not be effective in protecting children from CSA. This information is useful in designing programs to include parents in CSA protection and by approaching CSA prevention with parents as the key agents in the protection of children.