Did your heart just start beating faster? Even the term "sex" or "family life education" brings panic, fear, and increases the heartbeat and sweat glands in most adults. However, once the panic subsides, the debate over whether to have sex education in American schools or not - is done. A new poll finds that over 90% of Americans say sex education should be taught in schools.
According to the poll, the surveyed parents supported teaching 7th and 8th graders basic information on how babies are made, and 56 percent supported teaching all aspects of sex education, including birth control and safer sex in 7th and 8th grade, with a much higher percentage agreeing it should be taught in High School.
On the other hand, exactly who IS getting taught about sex? Unfortunately, the nationwide trend is that fewer young people are learning how to reduce the risk of getting a disease and preventing pregnancy. "The majority of school systems now focus on delaying sexual education as long as possible," said Barbara Huberman, the director of education for Advocates for Youth, a pro-education group in Washington, D.C. "While you may get an overview of contraception in the seventh or eighth grade, there are many, many school systems that are afraid to talk about it at all."
I am a School Nurse at a Middle School in a suburb of a large city. They teach about "abstinence" in a brief session. Then, on a daily basis, I get to deal with the student's choices and mistakes. I hear stories that make me want to cry. I hear parents frequently say, "my daughter/son would never do that", or "I don't think (insert child's name here) would ever have sex". The all seem horrified at the thought. But, what I see and hear on consistently (and remember, this is middle school) tells a different story. Just so you don't think my school is unusual, I read articles and stories from nurses all over the country that say the same thing.
I have girls coming to me fearing pregnancy (and some really are pregnant). Some of these same girls have had multiple partners (yes, they are only 12-14 years old and yes, some are a mandatory CPS/Law Enforcement call). Amazingly, these same girls will say statements like, "I know that you can get pregnant through oral sex, but I try to be careful". They ARE too young to be having sex, but it is happening - and not infrequently. We may have grown up in a different time, and want to believe it can't happen in our own home, but let me give you some hard statistics:
The average girl today begins to develop some characteristics of puberty between ages 10 and 11, with many showing some changes at ages eight or nine.
One in 12 students experience their first sexual intercourse before age 13, and a quarter of all children (24 percent of girls and 27 percent of boys) have had sex by age 15, and many believe these estimates to be low. Remember, these numbers do not include the "everything but intercourse" in them. Each year, one in four sexually active teens contracts a sexually transmitted disease. Genital herpes (which cannot be cured) has increased by almost 30% in young people in the last 9 years. There are over 900,000 teen pregnancies per year. When it comes to HIV, the largest increase in cases is seen in teenagers. These statistics are frightening.
Ideally, parents should give strong teaching to their kids about honesty, integrity, self-value, and abstinence for the first 10 to 12 years of life. If they did a really good job of this, and taught their children to make good decisions, we wouldn't be having this epidemic and being forced to have as many conversations with 14, 15 and 16 years old about what to do about an unplanned pregnancy or a STD.
Which leads to why this should be taught in the school - parents would be the ideal choice to teach this to children. That would be assuming you have parents who are willing to do so. But, a majority of parents don't know how to talk to their kids about sex and sexually transmitted diseases. The other part of that equation is that many families today are very dysfunctional - some parents abuse alcohol, drugs, work too many hours, have high stress or anxiety, or have various other reasons for not having the ability to talk with their children. That leaves the "job" of teaching kids about sex and STD's to the educational system.
Although this is an uncomfortable subject, it IS an important one. I am a strong believer in abstinence. If it were up to me, everyone would abstain until marriage. However, I am a realist as well. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and hope teen sex goes away. Teens are "doing it", getting pregnant, and catching diseases. They need education and support and we need to guide them. It is our job as educators and adults to keep them safe. Please start early talking to your kids and have a good relationship with them about everything. They are the most important "assets" you have. Also, talk to your school Administrators about how you can support the family life education and be involved. Let's try to put a dent in this sad epidemic.
Tracey S. Watson is newly fifty and full of life. She is a nurse, so is interested in health and wellness, as well as beauty, fashion, travel, and decorating. Please visit her new web page at http://TrueToLifeTracey.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tracey_S_Watson
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Teen Parenting - A Hard Look at Real Numbers
Despite widespread availability of sex education in our middle and high schools, the incidence of teen parenting is still far too common today. As raw and unbiased statistics will show, unwed teen parents and their children will face huge hurdles in life and will most likely experience lowered expectations in their health, finances and education.
Health Problems Due To Lack Of Prenatal Care
Due mainly to the lack of proper prenatal care, teenage mothers face higher pregnancy health risks than women who deliver children at a later age, including anemia, pregnancy-related high blood pressure, underweight birth, premature delivery, and even death.
Teen parenting statistics reveal that up to 40% of teen mothers do not receive adequate, high-quality medical care during pregnancy. There is some debate as to whether this prenatal medical care is simply unavailable to these teen mothers-to-be, or the care is simply not actively sought during pregnancy. Without proper prenatal care, many children born to teen mothers come into the world in poor health.
Education Suffers
Alarming statistics show that teen parenting leaves many victims in education as only 50% of teen parents will graduate from high school before age 30. And, the real tragedy is that being a teen parent without even a high school diploma almost guarantees that the teen and her baby will live a life of poverty, dependent upon marginal government handouts as peers progress into adulthood and on to successful families and careers.
Teen mothers are encouraged to stay in school, by way of numerous state and federal programs, and 80% of them do - for a while. Unfortunately, the realities of caring for another life so early in the teen parent's lives definitely takes a toll, as most will not earn their high school diploma.
Good Jobs Hard To Find
The lack of a quality education due to teen parenting translates directly into difficulties locating and keeping well-paying, steady employment. Without even a high school diploma, the teen parent is doomed to fill mostly low-wage service or light manufacturing positions - jobs that traditionally pay low wages and have high turnover. Even if the teen parent is able to find and keep one of these low-paying jobs, the low wages and lack of promotion to higher-paying positions (due to lack of education) makes it tough to make ends meet.
Due to the consequences of teen parenting, the teen and his or her small family with a job is in a catch-22 position - making too much money to qualify for government help, not making enough to rise out of poverty.
To make economic matters worse, only 10% of teen mothers receive any financial assistance from the father. 40% of teen mothers receive benefits from various government programs, thus beginning (or perpetuating) a vicious welfare lifestyle, that has claimed generations of teen parents, and doomed them to a marginal life of low expectations and government dependency.
One statistic to consider - women who deliver their first child between 20 and 24 years of age statistically have a much better chance of earning a college degree than teen parents, thus almost guaranteeing their lives (and the lives of their children) will not be spent in hopeless poverty.
The Child Of The Teen Suffers
The real victims of teen parenting are the children themselves. These children usually exhibit lower cognitive development (the development of thought processes) than those children of non-teen parents. Due to the poorer socioeconomic conditions these children grow up in, they tend to be underachievers in school and are more likely to not earn a high school diploma than their peers.
Children of teen parents also tend to have sexual relations earlier than their peers, and chances are much greater that these "children of children" will go on to be teen parents themselves.
Some Advice
The best advice? Don't become a teen parent! There are so many strikes against teen parenting that the teens who do get pregnant in high school never realize just how bad things will get for them - until it actually happens to them.
These teen parents (and their parents) almost never take the unborn life they are creating into consideration - that no matter how much love and attention the child is given, teen parenting's high costs will be born largely by the child created. And, that child has no choice in the matter - but the teen parent does. Consider adoption as there are many well-qualified two-parent families who will be able to give the child a real chance in life, and break the cycle of teen parenting.
Don't waste your valuable time scouring the internet looking for parenting advice! Click HERE for help and advice for your family and any parenting concerns!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Morton
Health Problems Due To Lack Of Prenatal Care
Due mainly to the lack of proper prenatal care, teenage mothers face higher pregnancy health risks than women who deliver children at a later age, including anemia, pregnancy-related high blood pressure, underweight birth, premature delivery, and even death.
Teen parenting statistics reveal that up to 40% of teen mothers do not receive adequate, high-quality medical care during pregnancy. There is some debate as to whether this prenatal medical care is simply unavailable to these teen mothers-to-be, or the care is simply not actively sought during pregnancy. Without proper prenatal care, many children born to teen mothers come into the world in poor health.
Education Suffers
Alarming statistics show that teen parenting leaves many victims in education as only 50% of teen parents will graduate from high school before age 30. And, the real tragedy is that being a teen parent without even a high school diploma almost guarantees that the teen and her baby will live a life of poverty, dependent upon marginal government handouts as peers progress into adulthood and on to successful families and careers.
Teen mothers are encouraged to stay in school, by way of numerous state and federal programs, and 80% of them do - for a while. Unfortunately, the realities of caring for another life so early in the teen parent's lives definitely takes a toll, as most will not earn their high school diploma.
Good Jobs Hard To Find
The lack of a quality education due to teen parenting translates directly into difficulties locating and keeping well-paying, steady employment. Without even a high school diploma, the teen parent is doomed to fill mostly low-wage service or light manufacturing positions - jobs that traditionally pay low wages and have high turnover. Even if the teen parent is able to find and keep one of these low-paying jobs, the low wages and lack of promotion to higher-paying positions (due to lack of education) makes it tough to make ends meet.
Due to the consequences of teen parenting, the teen and his or her small family with a job is in a catch-22 position - making too much money to qualify for government help, not making enough to rise out of poverty.
To make economic matters worse, only 10% of teen mothers receive any financial assistance from the father. 40% of teen mothers receive benefits from various government programs, thus beginning (or perpetuating) a vicious welfare lifestyle, that has claimed generations of teen parents, and doomed them to a marginal life of low expectations and government dependency.
One statistic to consider - women who deliver their first child between 20 and 24 years of age statistically have a much better chance of earning a college degree than teen parents, thus almost guaranteeing their lives (and the lives of their children) will not be spent in hopeless poverty.
The Child Of The Teen Suffers
The real victims of teen parenting are the children themselves. These children usually exhibit lower cognitive development (the development of thought processes) than those children of non-teen parents. Due to the poorer socioeconomic conditions these children grow up in, they tend to be underachievers in school and are more likely to not earn a high school diploma than their peers.
Children of teen parents also tend to have sexual relations earlier than their peers, and chances are much greater that these "children of children" will go on to be teen parents themselves.
Some Advice
The best advice? Don't become a teen parent! There are so many strikes against teen parenting that the teens who do get pregnant in high school never realize just how bad things will get for them - until it actually happens to them.
These teen parents (and their parents) almost never take the unborn life they are creating into consideration - that no matter how much love and attention the child is given, teen parenting's high costs will be born largely by the child created. And, that child has no choice in the matter - but the teen parent does. Consider adoption as there are many well-qualified two-parent families who will be able to give the child a real chance in life, and break the cycle of teen parenting.
Don't waste your valuable time scouring the internet looking for parenting advice! Click HERE for help and advice for your family and any parenting concerns!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Morton
Time Outs Do Not Work
The second strategy the most parents and teachers are very familiar with is the use of timeout. I particularly get a kick out of the concept of a time out. Basically, time outs are used when a child is doing something that he or she are not supposed, so the child goes and sits in a chair. Then, something "miraculously" happens where the child comes out of the chair and he or she say sorry and never does it again. Truth be told, this is what people believes works...
Parents/Teachers believe that a child who goes over and punches his or her brother in the face and takes a toy, that if you sit the child in a chair for one minute per age, that six minutes of "doing their time" the child is going to know what to do differently next time. This is really absurd to me.
Especially when you add to the fact, what the gurus don't tell you in literature when you read about time outs. They won't tell you that there is a whole power struggle to get the child into time out. That is just problem #1.
Problem #2 what they don't tell you is how to get the child to stay in time. It becomes a complete power struggle of bringing them back and forth, lugging them over, and you start to ask question like...how do I keep them in the chair?
So what do the gurus say? They say to tell the child, "If you don't stay in your chair then I (the parent) will add minutes to your time out. Even better that the time out "will not begin until they are sitting still".
As you have all seen on Super Nanny, and we have seen in general from our own experience, is that time outs last forever! Something that should be 3 minutes turns into an hour and half...2-3 hours...and really what is the point?
Do you really think 3 hours later the child has a clue as to why he punched his brother in the first place? And do you know why you are sitting their wrestling back and forth with your child. No, it becomes a complete mess!
Do you want to learn exactly how to eliminate your child's out-of-control and defiant behavior without using Punishments, Time-Outs, Behavioral Plans, or Rewards?
Visit: http://www.theinhomeparentcoach.com
To Download and listen to my FREE audio recordings.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_K_Johnson
Parents/Teachers believe that a child who goes over and punches his or her brother in the face and takes a toy, that if you sit the child in a chair for one minute per age, that six minutes of "doing their time" the child is going to know what to do differently next time. This is really absurd to me.
Especially when you add to the fact, what the gurus don't tell you in literature when you read about time outs. They won't tell you that there is a whole power struggle to get the child into time out. That is just problem #1.
Problem #2 what they don't tell you is how to get the child to stay in time. It becomes a complete power struggle of bringing them back and forth, lugging them over, and you start to ask question like...how do I keep them in the chair?
So what do the gurus say? They say to tell the child, "If you don't stay in your chair then I (the parent) will add minutes to your time out. Even better that the time out "will not begin until they are sitting still".
As you have all seen on Super Nanny, and we have seen in general from our own experience, is that time outs last forever! Something that should be 3 minutes turns into an hour and half...2-3 hours...and really what is the point?
Do you really think 3 hours later the child has a clue as to why he punched his brother in the first place? And do you know why you are sitting their wrestling back and forth with your child. No, it becomes a complete mess!
Do you want to learn exactly how to eliminate your child's out-of-control and defiant behavior without using Punishments, Time-Outs, Behavioral Plans, or Rewards?
Visit: http://www.theinhomeparentcoach.com
To Download and listen to my FREE audio recordings.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_K_Johnson
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