Parenting Teens

Do you suspect that your teenager might be in an abusive relationship? Abusive relationships can take many forms, and do not necessarily involve physical abuse. A fairly new website, Love Is Respect, provides resources for teenagers, parents, friends, etc., about abusive aspects of relationships. They are also a helpline, accessible via internet or telephone. The phone number is 1-866-331-9474.

The following is a quiz they offer to see if your relationship might be abusive:

Does your boyfriend/girlfriend:

Look at you or act in ways that scare you?

Act jealous or possessive?

Put you down or criticize you?

Try to control where you go, what you wear or what you do?

Text or IM you excessively?

Blame you for the hurtful things they say and do?

Threaten to kill or hurt you or themselves if you leave them?

Try to stop you from seeing or talking to friends and family?

Try to force you to have sex before you’re ready?

Do they hit, slap, push or kick you?

This is excellent information for your teenager to have. Share the website and phone number with them. Urge them to look over the information, and to use the website or phone number if they need help. With abusive relationships on the rise, both teens and parents can use all the information and resources they can get.

abuse, abusive relationships, boyfriends, girlfriends, relationships, Love Is Respect, teens, teenagers, parenting teens, parenting teenagers

College tips will be a semi-regular feature during the summer months. With many parents having teens ready to go off to college for the first time, information is the most helpful thing available! Today’s tip deals with something that many people don’t think about beforehand-your son or daughter’s medical records.

Unless your teen is going to a college in his/her hometown, and will be seeing the same doctor as before, getting copies of medical records can be a very useful thing to do! Whether your teenager will be going to the campus health clinic or will be finding a private physician in the area where they will be attending college, their medical history can be important to their continued medical care. Whether you call them medical records or a Personal Health Record, which is the current term favored by the American Health Information Management Association(AHIMA), and whether you keep a paper or a computerized record, having them can be essential.

This tip is being discussed at the beginning of the summer because it can take time to obtain copies of medical records. Obtaining these records will probably require a trip to each physician and/or hospital who has seen your teen since childhood. If your teenager is under 18, you will need to sign a release form for his/her records. If a teen is over 18, he/she will be required to sign for themselves.

It can be a hassle and take a lot of time, but it will be well worth it. If your teen has a chronic illness or condition for which he needs ongoing treatment, or if he has allergies, or any other condition which needs to be considered during medical treatment, his new physician/clinic will need to know.

The link above provides a checklist for medical information which is useful. In the midst of all the college planning, take time to obtain your teen’s medical records. And keep a copy for yourself! You never know when you might need them.

college, college life, medical records, AHIMA, American Health Information Management Association, personal health record, teens, teenagers, parenting teens, parenting teenagers

Dear Abby is teaming with the Federal Citizens Information Center to provide a Health Information Packet celebrating National Women’s Health Week, May 13-19. The kit consists of publications usually offered separately by the FCIC, but are being offered in a packet for the first time. The kit contains publications on the following conditions and topics:

*Allergies
*Asthma
*Cholesterol
*Depression
*Diabetes
*Food Safety
*Heart Disease
*High Blood Pressure
*Listeria
*Mammography
*Sleep Disorders
*Smoking
*Strokes
*Sunscreens
*West Nile Virus

The kit is free, and is available for order at the above link, or by calling 1-888-878-3256. This is great information for all women (including moms!) and some of it could be useful for teen daughters as well! Order yours today!

Yahoo News recently posted a story regarding a club in a Miami, Florida high school which promoted tolerance of gays: Judge: School’s gay rights club can meet. A U.S. District judge ruled that the school must grant the same priveleges to the Gay Straight Alliance that it grants to other school clubs, per federal law. Following is a quote from the article.

The
American Civil Liberties Union sued the Okeechobee school board in November on behalf of the high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance after school officials said the group was a “sex-based” organization that would violate its abstinence-only education policy.

Why is it that these people would see the word “gay” in the name of a club and automatically assume that this club violates an abstinence-only policy? We see this a lot. Apparently, people have the idea that “all the sex you can get” is an integral part of the definition of the word “gay”! Apparently, the club should have begun its message of promoting tolerance of gays with the school board!

By automatically making such assumptions and by attempting to deny such clubs the right to meet, we are expressing our ignorance and intolerance in a big way. As adults and parents, we are supposed to be setting a good example for our teenagers. This is not the way to do it.

Have any of you dealt with this issue in the schools your children attend? Please let me know about it!

gay, gay teens, gay teenagers, school clubs, parenting teens, parenting teenagers, Gay-Straight Alliance, ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union

As a social worker, one of my favorite sites is Psychiatry Matters. I get updates from them on all kinds of psychiatry and counseling-related issues. I got an update the other day that is good news for parents who have teenagers with depression.

According to a study from England, a majority of adolescents with major depressive disorder have a favorable outcome. They tested 523 adolescents by interviewing them twice, fifteen months apart. 90 of the adolescents, with the average age of 14, were diagnosed with major depressive disorder in the first interview. Just 24% of those 90 still had a diagnosis of depression 15 months later. For a very few, depression had been replaced by other problems-including anxiety disorders or substance abuse.
Factors that were present in teens with ongoing depression included substance abuse, parents with alcohol problems, presence of negative life events, suicidal thoughts, as well as several other factors.

Basically, the good news is that only a small number of teenagers have an ongoing problem with depression. That’s always great news for parents! Do you have a teen suffering from depression? Feel free to comment here.

parenting teens, parenting teenagers, depression, teen depression, adolescent depression, Psychiatry Matters

Web MD has an interesting article concerning a study done by a Harvard graduate student, who analyzed data collected from approximately 15,000 teenagers. The teens were interviewed in 1995 and again in 1996. The title of the piece is Teen Virginity Pledges: Can They Work. According to the study, apparently not very well!

In the first survey, 13% of teens said they’d taken a virginity pledge. A year later, 53% of them said, “What pledge?”

Now, this could point to a need to conduct more studies on memory in teenagers! But I don’t think so! It sounds more like selective memory loss. Apparently, those teens who were already sexually active or had become sexually active were more likely to retract their virginity pledges.
The article goes on to talk about sex-education and religion, and the roles they play in how teenagers report sexual activity. The entire article is available at the above link. It’s a good read, so drop in.

However, I was more interested in getting some feedback from readers. As the parent of a teen, have you tried a virginity pledge with your son or daughter? What was the result? Do you think that a virginity pledge is something that teens would uphold? I’d like to know what other parents think of virginity pledges-whether you feel they’re a good thing, and why or why not?

parenting teens, parenting teenagers, teen sexuality, virginity pledges, WebMD, sexually active teenagers, teen sexual activity

Thanks to Char over at Weary Parent for pointing me toward this story. Awhile back, I posted on the HPV vaccine and the controversy over whether it should be required for tween and teen girls.

Now, the folks at Connect with Kids have posted a story: Should Boys Get the HPV Vaccine?

HPV (human papilloma virus) is a sexually transmitted infection, which is the cause for cervical cancer. Because of this, the Centers for Disease Control have recommended that girls ages 9-26 get the new vaccine. But, wait a minute… HPV also causes cancer in men, even though it’s less common. In males, the virus can cause penile and anal cancer (and genital warts), as men get older. The HPV vaccine can protect males from these. And it can also help protect girls, who get HPV from their male sexual partners.

So far, the FDA has approved the vaccine only for girls, although studies are being conducted on its use for boys. However, some doctors already give the vaccine to young male patients. “I think it’s extremely safe. I prescribe a lot of it in my practice and no one has had any adverse side effects that I know about,” says Dr. Scott Parry of Intown Primary Care in Atlanta.

What about you parents of tweens and teens? Do you feel your sons should get this vaccination as well as your daughters, when it is approved for boys by the FDA? Chime in and let me know how you feel!

HPV, human papilloma virus, HPV vaccine, Weary Parent, Connect with Kids, parenting teens, parenting teenagers

One of the questions currently making the rounds of Dear Abby is the following:

DEAR ABBY: I am a 17-year-old high school senior. Last summer I lost my virginity. Since then I have slept with six guys. Do you think my future husband will be seriously upset about it, even though he will probably have been out there more than I have?

I guess I want to know whether you think I have become free-spirited or just promiscuous. — POSSIBLY PROMISCUOUS IN MURFREESBORO, N.C.

DEAR POSSIBLY: What I think is less important than what YOU think is appropriate behavior. And if you were comfortable with what you have been doing, you wouldn’t have written me.

If you continue on this path, you are in for trouble. The first thing that comes to mind is whether or not you know how to protect yourself from an unplanned pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. If the answer is no, then you need to see a doctor or visit a Planned Parenthood clinic and learn about the real “facts of life.” These include being checked for any STD you might have already been exposed to.

In addition, you say that in the last seven or eight months you have slept with six different men. At the rate you’re going, in another six months that number could double, and by the time you are 25, the total could be close to 100. That is not what people refer to as “free-spirited.” It definitely is what they call promiscuous. So, please take a break from men for a while and think carefully about how casual sex could affect your future

I agree with Abby 100% on this one! Obviously, this girl is not comfortable with her own behavior, or she wouldn’t be questioning it.

What about your teens-both girls and boys? Have you talked with them about their sex lives lately? This goes for teens of legal age, as well as those who are underage. Are they sexually active? Are they comfortable with the way they are behaving, and with how they are expressing their sexuality?

This is an important issue, as it can affect the way they handle relationships for the rest of their lives. This type of issue can be very difficult to address, even with older teens, but find a way to do it. It can take away some of the constant worry you feel as a parent.

teen sexuality, teen relationship, teens and sex, parenting teens, parenting teenagers, Dear Abby, sexuality, sexual relationships

The Associated Press has published an informative article regarding obesity surgery among U.S. teenagers. Essentially, it states that the number of teenagers having obesity surgery has tripled in recent years. The story is based on a study appearing in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

According to the study, the number of obesity surgery among teenagers had tripled from 2000-2003, reaching 771 surgeries among teens in 2003. Also, they report that the surgery appears to be slightly less risky in teenagers than in adults, with teens having shorter hospital stays than adults following surgery. Increased surgery among teens is, at least partially, attributed to publicity about celebrities having the surgery. They do provide the caveat that surgery should be a last resort for teens.

Of the 11 responses which had been posted when I read the article, almost all of them were something along the lines of parents being more responsible for their teens’ eating and exercise habits. The people who responded felt that teenagers watch too much TV and play too many video games while stuffing themselves with junk food.

I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that kids these days do not get enough exercise and eat too much junk food. These facts are evident everywhere around us. I was disturbed that both the study and the AP’s article talked about surgery tripling among teenagers without going into the reasons why it had tripled. There were a few quotes from a teenage boy who had undergone the surgery. That was it.

Where are the reasons? Did the teens simply feel they were too overweight? Had they tried other approaches to losing weight? How many approaches, and how long did they try? How did they reach the decision to have surgery?

Also, how about some information from parents whose children have had the surgery? Obviously, with the exception of teenagers over 18, the parents had to have given their consent, since either they or their insurance plans had to pay for it! What convinced them to allow their children to undergo surgery? To what did they attribute their teens’ obesity? Too much eating and too little exercise? Or did some of these teens have medical problems which made losing weight any other way too difficult or even impossible for them?

While this article was informational in some ways, it left out what I felt was a lot of pertinent information. I can certainly see teens who have medical problems with losing weight undergoing the surgery. But are some teens and parents simply taking this as an easy out, rather than undergoing diet and exercise programs?

I’d like to hear from any parents and teens out there with opinions on this.

obesity, obesity surgery, teen obesity, weight, weight problems, parents, parenting

I couldn’t let this week pass by without mentioning National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Eating disorders affect millions of people each year, including a disturbing number of teenagers. As someone who has struggled with eating disorders, I know firsthand the anguish and difficulties that can go along with them.

As a teenager, I suffered from binge eating-recurrent episodes of compulsive overeating. In my twenties, I did a complete 180-degree turnaround and suffered from anorexia nervosa-self starvation and excessive weight loss. At nearly 5 feet, 8 inches tall, I weighed only 100 lbs. at one point! My body image was terrible. No matter how much or how little weighed, all I saw was fat! I look back at pictures of myself now, and realize that I was skin and bone at one point, but I couldn’t see it.

I was helped by a combination of mental health counseling and good nutritional counseling. I learned to look at the state of my health, rather than the look of my body. Having learned so much from those days, I’ve tried to put it to the best use as the parent of a daughter.

Basically, I’ve never made weight an issue with my daughter. We talk about health rather than weight. We discuss healthy eating and exercise habits, as well as healthy body image. When we look at teen and fashion magazines, we discuss whether the models look healthy, and what both my daughter and I should do to maintain healthy weight.

After years of walking and using a “Gazelle” for working out, I joined “Curves” a few months ago. I’ve been really enjoying the program. The variety of exercises done in 30-second increments helps avoid boredom, and the complete workout in 30 minutes makes it easy to fit into my schedule. Recently, my daughter asked to join with me. She doesn’t feel she’s overweight, but she wants to do some tightening and toning. I’m really looking forward to it, as time we can spend together doing something worthwhile!

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week’s website offers tons of information on the different types of eating disorders, how you can get involved in educating the public on them, different types of treatments, and many other aspects of eating disorders. It also offers ways to improve body image and offers you a chance to register with their Parent and Family Network to receive updates.

If you suspect your child or teen has an eating disorder, make an appointment with a doctor right away. Eating disorders are often deadly diseases and, even when they are not, they cause lifelong physical and emotional problems. Make sure you are proactive in dealing with them.

eating disorders, binge eating, anorexia nervosa, National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, exercise, healthy eating, Curves, teens, teenagers, parents, parenting

The debate over the vaccine for human papillomavirus(HPV) rages on. I haven’t joined the fray until now, mainly because my fellow 451 Press blogger, Erinn over at Parenting Our Children has had a couple of recent posts on it, and I didn’t want our blogs to overlap. Today, however, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Georgia state senate approved a bill yesterday which would require that girls in Georgia who are entering the sixth grade be vaccinated against HPV. As a resident of Georgia, I decided it was past time for me to enter the fray.

To begin, U.S. Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia (an OB/GYN and father, as well as a member of Congress) makes a good point in his Editorialin the same paper. Decisions about healthcare should be the responsibility of parents. He believes the Georgia Legislature should not take such a decision away from families. So do I-to a point.

However, I also noted some good point made in the replies to the paper’s Online blog. Among them:

*Nikki’s comment: …”I don’t think anyone wants to have to say to their adult daughter later in
life, ‘You might have avoided this terrible disease if I’d not thought that
getting vaccinated for it would make you promiscuous.’ …This vaccine isn’t
going to make anyone more or less likely to engage in sexual behavior, but it
will reduce the chance that your daughters will develop cancer.
I think that makes this a no-brainer.”

*JJMB’s comment: “This is a slam dunk. No brainer. One shot to prevent a common cancer.
Talk about a miracle.”

Now, of course, there are also a lot of good arguments the other way. Some of them, like Congressman Gingrey, are concerned with turning over too many rights to the government-always a concern. Some of them are religious. Some are concerned over side effects-also always a concern. Many make the tired old argument that giving girls this vaccine is saying to them “Go out and have all the sex you want!”

As far as my opinion on this goes, let me say first that I have a 16-year-old daughter who will definitely be given this vaccine. I’m concerned about side effects, yes,-but I was also concerned about side effects when she had all her normal childhood vaccinations. I’m basically with the contingent that doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. This vaccine can help prevent my daughter getting cancer. I’ve known people who died of cervical cancer. My own mother died of lung cancer. If I can do anything to help prevent my child from getting cancer- Well, like JMMB said, it’s a no-brainer.

I’m also not normally in favor of giving away our rights to the government. But, wait a minute. Aren’t these also our children’s rights that we’re talking about? Don’t they have the right to be given any protection available from a deadly disease? There are many parents out there who simply don’t keep up with things like this. So, what about the girls whose parents never find out about this vaccine? Also, having worked with a lot of children and families, I’ve seen first-hand that there are parents out there (divorced parents, never-married parents, and even parents who are married) who will oppose a medical treatment just to spite the other parents. You know the type. Those parents who turn their children into weapons on their battlegrounds.

So, what should the argument really be about? The rights of parents to make decisions about their children? The rights of children to be protected from this disease? Are they the same argument? Let me know how you feel about the HPV vaccine and the other issues I’ve raised.

Here are some other blogs discussing the same issue:

*Char at Weary Parent
*Gayla at Gayla’s Place
*Sarah Collins Honenberger at Read White Lies
*Angela at Herpes Simplex Help

HPV, HPV vaccine, human papillomavirus, human papillomavirus vaccine, Atlanta Journal-Consitution, Georgia, Georgia State Legislature, Phil Gingrey, teen healthcare, teens, teenagers, parenting, parenting teens, parenting teenagers

The issue of health care for children affects teens, as well as younger children. Governors from several states representing both parties are opposing President Bush’s budget for a health care program which insures the children of the working poor. The President’s budget will not provide adequate funding for these programs which provide insurance for 6 million people, mostly children. The program covers uninsured children whose families earn too much for them to covered under Medicaid.

Fourteen states, including New Jersey and Georgia are expected to run out of money for the program before the next budget year begins in October. Both as a parent and as a former social worker, I know how vital it is that this program remains in place. At the time I was in college, my daughter was insured under this program in the state of Georgia. It was a godsend.

Without it, all of her doctor’s visits would have been to the emergency room, where the bill would have gone unpaid. Despite the fact that I was working (and earning just about five dollars a month too much for her to qualify for Medicaid!), my job did not provide insurance to cover her. I could not afford to pay the premiums for private insurance. Her biological father could not be found to provide insurance for her. Had it not been for this program, which is called PeachCare in Georgia, my daughter’s health could have been severely affected. My PeachCare premium for my daughter was $7.00 per month. It was affordable and covered dental care, vision care, and mental health care, as well as medical.

Later, as a social worker, I saw many families in the same boat. PeachCare was the only thing saving their children from either going without medical care or running up hospital bills which they could not pay. This program is vital. We have done much to provide insurance coverage for children over the past few years. Let’s not go backward and leave these children without care now.

Additionally, it makes no fiscal sense to underfund these programs. Are we trying to save money? This will not do it. Just as would have been the case with my daughter, parents without medical coverage for their children will end up taking them to hospital emergency rooms. The bills will be outrageous and the parents will be unable to pay them. This will result in millions of dollars in unpaid hospital bills, which will, in turn, result in a further rise in health care charges and health care premiums for those who can pay. This, in turn, will cause parents with no insurance coverage for their children to run up even larger bills when taking their children to hospital emergency rooms.

This vicious cycle has to be broken somewhere along the line. Let’s not throw away what little progress we have made in this area. Funding for these programs is definitely money well spent.

health care, children’s health care, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, teens, teenagers, parents, Peachcare, Georgia, New Jersey, President Bush

Practically everyone who has access to the Internet these days knows about Web MD. It’s one of the most, if not the most popular site for medical information. Recently, Web MD reported on a news study published by the journal Pediatrics on the emotional toll of teen sex.

In this study, all of the teens reported having vaginal and/or oral sex by spring of the 10th grade. It also reported that girls were three times as likely as boys to say they felt used as a result of having sex, and twice as likely to say they felt bad about themselves.

To me, this says we need to be talking more with our teens about sex. Not just about whether they should or shouldn’t be having sex, but about their feelings and emotions regarding themselves and their sexual activity. I’m not advocating telling your teen that it’s okay to go out and have sex any time they want. But if they are sexually active, we need to get over our moral outrage enough to talk with them about protecting themselves both physically and emotionally.

Talk to your teen about their emotional relationships and how sex can affect them. Tell them about your own early experiences with sex and how you felt about it. Yes, it can be difficult to get the words out-difficult to talk about something that most people feel is a very private matter. But remember, this is your child. If he or she isn’t worth doing something very difficult, then who is?

This goes for boys as well as girls. The longstanding double-standard in our society is that, while boys are looked up to for having sex, girls are seen as either “good girls” or “bad girls” depending on whether they are sexually active. While this standard is easing, it is still out there.

Talk to your teenager today about sex and its effect on their emotions. Let them know that you are there for them. If they are feeling bad about a sexual relationship, talk with them about the reasons for this. Did they have sex before they felt really ready? Did the sexual partner do or say something which made them feel this way? Whatever you do, don’t shy away from this subject. It is one which teens need to discuss. Some guidance, or just being able to talk with you about it, can make all the difference.

teens, teenagers, sex, teen sex, teen sexual activity, parents, parenting, Web MD, Pediatrics

Is your teenage daughter sexually active? Does she use contraceptives? It’s a difficult thing for parents of teen daughters to think about, but not thinking about it could turn out to be even more difficult-both for parents and daughters.

A study appearing in the January issue of The American Journal of Public Health suggests that 86% of the decline in teen pregnancy rates resulted from improved contraceptive use. The authors of the study, Dr. John Santelli and colleagues, concluded that the study raises serious questions about the value of the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only education programs that prohibit information about the benefits of condoms and contraception.

Personally, as the parent of a teenage daughter, I’ve long questioned the value of those programs. Yes, I’d prefer that my daughter not have sex without being in a serious relationship. But I’d prefer even more that she protect herself from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease like HIV.

We cannot prevent our teens from having sex. It is a natural, normal part of being human. It will happen-with or without our consent or approval. Isn’t it more important that our teens be protected from pregnancy and disease than that our personal ideas of morality be upheld?

Have you talked with your daughter about sex, relationships and contraceptives? If not, do it right away. If she is sexually active, see to it that she has an examination by a gynecologist and has access to contraceptives. You can, and probably will, discuss your personal objections to her behavior many times. First, see to it that her life is protected.

teens, teenagers, parents, parenting, teen pregnancy, teenage pregnancy, teenage sexuality, American Journal of Public Health

At what age does your child become an adolescent? Is there a point at which you can put your finger on it? A certain birthday when you can say for sure that your child is now an adolescent?

Today, it is common to hear parents comment that their 10- or 11-year-old is “acting like a teenager.” It is no longer uncommon for children of these ages to begin acting out adolescent behavior. Although most people equate being an adolescent with being a teenager, this is an arbitrary classification.

Basically, adolescence begins when puberty starts. The beginning of adolescence depends on a child’s emotional and physical maturity and varies from child to child. Other factors affecting the beginning of adolescence include the stressors of a child’s environment and the influence of their peers.

Obvious physical signs of puberty in boys are:

*facial or chest hair
*deepening of the voice
*increased awareness of their sexuality

Obvious physical signs for girls are:

*beginning menstruation
*development of their breasts
*voice changes (more subtle than those in boys)

A recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics revealed that physical signs of puberty occur in girls as young as 7 or 8, although such early signs of puberty are not as common in boys.

How should a parent handle early onset of puberty? Make a visit to your pediatrician or family physician and have your child checked to make sure there are no problems you should know about. Beyond that, as a parent, you need to have talks with your child about their physical and emotional changes-probably much earlier than you expected.

As a parent and a social worker, I know these conversations can be difficult-especially with younger children. If you need help with approaching the subject, talk with your child’s doctor, a school counselor or some other trusted professional about the best way to handle the situation. It will be an adjustment for you and your child but, if handled correctly, will leave both you and your new “adolescent” feeling good about yourselves!

adolescent, adolescence, parents, parenting, teens, teenagers, American Academy of Pediatrics, physical signs of adolescence