Hello Everyone! I hope all is well with you! I’m continuing my discussion on issues that affect teenagers and this week I’m talking about teen pregnancy.
According to the CDC the teen birth rate rose by three percent in 2006. (This is the latest year that information is available).
This surprised me. I mean with all the birth control options available how could this happen?
I started to research this and according to Planned Parenthood the rise can be blamed on abstinence-only sex education programs. Of course, this blew my mind. Abstinence-only sex education programs? Isn’t this moving backward?
So I dug a little deeper and found that the Busch administration funded the abstinence-only sex education program and according to Heather Boonstra from the Guttmacher Institute, it’s reasonable to conclude that this type of sex education program is not effective.
Sigh. I should have known the government was behind this in some way! LOL! J Just kidding! J
Because of this rise in teen pregnancy President Obama has changed his funding protocol. He has decided to fund comprehensive-sex education programs. That’s a good thing. In my humble opinion knowledge is power.
But truth be told, no birth control method is 100% effective. So the best way to prevent pregnancy is abstinence. Wouldn’t you agree?
Researchers have found that abstinent teens are far more likely to attend and graduate from college than those who are sexually active. They also found that these teenagers are less likely to suffer from depression.
So what can parents do?
According to the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health by Robert Recker and Kirk Johnson at Heritage Foundation, there are eight behavioral traits that are inborn, but can also be taught and reinforced. These are listed below.
- Future Orientation with a focus on long term goals.
- Willingness to postpone current pleasures for larger future goals.
- Perseverance, as in the ability to stick to a task or commitment.
- A belief that current behavior can positively affect the future.
- Impulse control, including the ability to control emotions and desires.
- Resistance to peer influence.
- Respect for parental and social values
- Sense of Self Worth and Personal Dignity.
These traits can be encouraged by parents and reinforced in schools. And in my humble opinion it’s best to start practicing them when they’re young. The reason I feel this way is that if you start doing this at a young age, by the time they’re teens these behaviors have become habits. J And we all know habits are hard to break. J
**I would like to thank the CDC and US News for some of the information provided in this blog post. J
