How To Monitor What Your Teen Does Online

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Preventing Teen Pregnancy

The United States has the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. Adolescent pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually.

Thirty-four percent of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20 -- about 820,000 a year. Eight in ten of these adolescent pregnancies are unintended and 79 percent are to unmarried adolescents.

The adolescent birth rate has declined slowly but steadily from 1991 to 2002 with an overall decline of 30 percent for those aged 15 to 19. These recent declines reverse the 23-percent rise in the adolescent birth rate from 1986 to 1991. The largest decline since 1991 by race was for black women. The birth rate for black adolescents aged 15 to 19 fell 42 percent between 1991 to 2002. Hispanic adolescent birth rates declined 20 percent between 1991 and 2002. The rates of both Hispanics and blacks, however, remain higher than for other groups. Hispanic adolescents now have the highest adolescent birth rates. Most adolescents giving birth before 1980 were married whereas most adolescents giving birth today are unmarried.

The younger an adolescent girl is when she has sex for the first time, the more likely she is to have had unwanted or non-voluntary sex. Close to four in ten girls who had first intercourse at 13 or 14 report it was either non-voluntary or unwanted.

Adolescent Pregnancy Consequences –

Adolescent mothers are less likely to complete high school (only one-third receive a high school diploma) and only 1.5% have a college degree by age 30. Adolescent mothers are more likely to end up on welfare (nearly 80 percent of unmarried adolescent mothers end up on welfare).

The kids of adolescent mothers have lower birth weights, are more likely to perform poorly in school, and are at greater risk of abuse and neglect.

The sons of adolescent mothers are 13 percent more likely to end up in prison while adolescent daughters are 22 percent more likely to become adolescent mothers themselves.

Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention—

The primary reason that adolescent girls who have never had intercourse give for abstaining from sex is that having sex would be against their religious or moral values. Other reasons cited include desire to avoid pregnancy, fear of contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and not having met the appropriate partner. Three of four girls and over half of boys report that girls who have sex do so because their boyfriends want them to.

Adolescents who have strong emotional attachments to their moms and dads are much less likely to become sexually active at an early age and less likely to have a adolescent pregnancy.

Most people say adolescents should remain abstinent but should have access to contraception. Ninety-four percent of adults in the United States-and 91 percent of adolescents-think it important that school-aged kids and adolescents be given a strong message from society that they should abstain from sex until they are out of high school. Seventy-eight percent of adults also think that sexually active adolescents should have access to contraception to prevent adolescent pregnancy.

Contraceptive use among sexually active adolescents has increased but remains inconsistent. Three-quarters of adolescents use some method of contraception (usually a condom) the first time they have sex. A sexually active adolescent who does not use contraception has a 90 percent chance of adolescent pregnancy within one year.

Moms and dads rate high among many adolescents as trustworthy and preferred information sources on birth control. One in two adolescents say they "trust" their moms and dads most for reliable and complete information about birth control, only 12 percent say a friend.

Adolescents who have been raised by both moms and dads (biological or adoptive) from birth, have lower probabilities of having sex than youths who grew up in any other family situation. At age 16, 22 percent of girls from intact families and 44 percent of other girls have had sex at least once. Similarly, adolescents from intact, two-parent families are less likely to give birth in their adolescents than girls from other family backgrounds.

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Modeling responsible drinking, or contributing to the delinquency of a minor?

Hi Mark

Finding your website and going through your program has brought a great sense of relief to me and my husband. I have just finished Session 4 and have already implemented several strategies. Our just turned 16 year old son S___ has been an "intense" kid pretty much all his life. We love him dearly however he has been very stressful to raise with many angry outbursts. He has a 12 year old brother who is a lot calmer and easier.

Our current issue with him is that he has recently become friends with a new group of teenagers in the year above him at school. The legal drinking age in New Zealand is 18, and these 16-17 year olds have regular parties with lots of alcohol. So far he has been to one where he drank one beer, then said no when offered more. I believe him as when he came home he didn't appear to be at all drunk, also he has always thought for himself and seems a little less subject to peer pressure than others his age. Now he has been invited to another party where we don't know the teenagers or their parents. It concerns me that we have no phone numbers for any of these people. When he was younger it was easy to meet his friends' parents, now he doesn't want us to be involved at all and is being quite verbally aggressive about wanting to go and telling us it's nothing to do with us. I am planning to implement the 'Art of Saying Yes' with the condition that he brings a close friend of his with him and brings non-alcoholic drinks. We have agreed to a rule that one beer is okay (previously he has never drunk alcohol).

Do you have any ideas for us with this issue?

M.

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Hi M.,

Re: We have agreed to a rule that one beer is okay (previously he has never drunk alcohol). Do you have any ideas for us with this issue?

Well, one can make a good argument on either side of the fence:

1. Good idea. You will be modeling responsible drinking...

...or

2. Bad idea. You will contributing to the delinquency of a minor...

Weighing-in the fact that the legal drinking age in New Zealand is 18, I would say that this issue falls into a gray area (i.e., there is not just one right way to handle this).

I think this should be your call -- you decide which way you want to go, then do an assessment after the fact to see if it was a good decision. (However, if alcoholism runs in the family, I would say to strongly discourage drinking -- and educate your son regarding the special risks that exist for him having a genetic predisposition to alcoholism.)

Mark Hutten, M.A.

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Your program has been an absolute life-saver for our family...

Hi Mark

When I called the cops on my daughter due to a similar situation a year earlier (she was 14yrs old), the Police took her aside in a separate room and she told them a big story about how her behaviour was not her fault and that I was a bad mother and so the Police advised her to go to live with her father. They did not bother to find out from me what the truth was about her behaviour, and also that her father had bashed her (and our son) in a drunken/drugged rage. In short, the Police here would not help me and instead guided our daughter into a dangerous situation (and she then witnessed her stepmother and step-brother being bashed by her father. - They then left and had him charged but our daughter was then left alone to live with her father who threatened to kill her if she left him.)

BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS is that I did continue diligently with your program, and every time that I was in danger of being hit by our son due to setting limits or issuing a consequence for our son’s misbehaviour, I would quickly leave the house and go for a walk or drive for 30 to 60 minutes to give him time to calm down (even if it was cold and raining in the middle of winter). I had to persevere with this for a few months and now things have improved DRAMATICALLY. Our son knows that I will follow through with consequences (it was taking the TV cord so that he couldn’t watch TV).

Our son is no longer physically violent or threatening to me and does not tease or hurt our dogs anymore. I am now working on his bad language towards me and that is greatly improved.

Then, about 3 weeks ago, our daughter, thank goodness, returned to me. She is much more grown up and appreciative of me now and even said to me yesterday ‘I thought I was right Mum but now I know I was wrong’. Though she herself is still at risk of acting violently towards her brother, she is really looking at herself and listening to me and I am totally confident now that with your program that I can discipline her to change her tendency towards violence to her brother (she is not violent to me anymore).

A big part of the change in the whole situation (where our daughter got the confidence to leave her father) was because I filed an Affidavit in the Family Court speaking out about everything that has happened in our family which came as a big shock and wakeup call to their father. Even though he has punished me repeatedly and harshly every time I have spoken up, because I have been using the principles of your program on him, his retaliation is slowly but surely diminishing.

I want to tell you that your program has been an absolute life-saver for our family, without the use of ‘the cops’. I have found that many police lack understanding and willingness to do anything, except for a very few, however despite that, I am managing to pull our family back from chaos to civilisation.

I am also continuing to use the philosophy of your program on my ex-husband as best as possible. Thank you very much, I will keep going.

C.


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How To Monitor Where Your Child Goes On The Internet -- You May Be Shocked By What You Discover !

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How to Deal with Teens Who Won't Follow Rules

It may be difficult to get your teenage daughter or son to follow house rules in the beginning. One thing about house rules is to let everyone know what they are. Don't give the teenagers any warnings after they are aware of the rules. 

 

If they break the rules then they will have to deal with the consequences. Don't let them slack off, otherwise then they will think that you aren't serious and won't care about the rules.

Teenagers need to know that you are the boss of the house. Whichever rules that parents have for their house then the teenagers should follow. Make sure that both mom and dad enforce the rules otherwise the teenagers will try to use parents against each other. 

Here are ten tips in order to help you let your teenagers know that you are serious about them following the house rules:

1. Be respectful of your teen but let him know that you expect the same in return. He is living under your roof and let him know that you will do everything in your power to prevent him from engaging in behaviors that jeopardize the well-being of the family.

2. Do not make unsolicited and/or negative comments about changes in your teen's dress or physical appearance. Although a child who changes his look may be looking for attention or may be signaling to you that he feels like an outcast, give him the freedom to experiment with his identity if he needs to, as long as he is not endangering himself or others. 

 

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3. Make them have consequences every time when they misbehave. Be firm about this and don't let them slack off on the rules. Let them know that you are serious about the house rules and that you expect them to follow the rules. You can make them do extra chores or ground them from seeing friends or any after school activities.

4. Relax. You made it through the teen years and so will your child. Let your teen express his feelings and show respect when he withdraws or needs some space. Refrain from taking his outbursts personally. Remember how difficult it is to go through the transformation of adolescence. Your child is transforming physically, emotionally and spiritually. This can be a painful second birth.

5. Stand strong. Ever since its inception, there has been resistance to the tough love parenting movement, primarily because people think it is harsh. If your teen is in danger of destroying his life, sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to be firm. Being tough doesn't have to mean being cruel. Cruelty is taking no action in the face of your teenager's impending self-destruction. Although it was probably inaction on your part that has helped create your teen's sense of self-entitlement today, you have a chance to help him turn things around. Do this in a way that shows that you mean business, but also lets him know that loving someone means that getting them to take responsibility.

6. Stop enabling your child. When your teen does something wrong, don't stand in the way of his consequences. Some parents enable their teen by making excuses for his bad behavior. If your kid gets suspended from school for drug use, don't defend his behavior. Everybody knows there are no drugs at school. Let him suffer the consequences so he learns from them. Make it clear that you can't rescue him when he does things he knows are wrong. Even if things have been tough in your family life and you can understand why your child might want to escape his life, do not prevent the natural consequences of his actions. Instead, acknowledge this as a cry for help and get it for him.

7. Take away the Internet or take away the keys to their car. Teenagers either love to play on the Internet or love the freedom of having a car. You will only have to take away the Internet or the car keys a few times for them to understand that you are serious. They won't try to keep pushing the limits since they want their freedom back.

8. You can always send your teenagers to summer school. Most teenagers don't like summer school. Summer school would get teenagers to behave pretty quickly since they would dread going to summer school for the entire summer. One thing to keep in mind though that summer school wouldn't work on a teenager would does love to learn since he or she would probably enjoy summer school.

9. You can remove each television and computer out of the house. It will really make the teenagers bored. They will want to have the television and computer back real fast so they would be willing to follow the house rules then. You want to use this as a last resort in order to get them to behave. Teenagers love to be entertained so taking away all entertainment devices such as television and computer will make them want those privileges back soon.

10. You can take away their money. You can take away their allowance money and you can even take away money from them that they earn from a part time job while still in high school. They will eventually get tired of not being able to spend any of their money that they earned. Teenagers love money and if you take away their money then they will be more eager to follow the house rules.

Tough love is hard, but it works. If your teen thinks she is involved in making a decision to help find a solution, she may think she matters. A lot of the anxiety that teenagers feel is because they think they are alone and no one listens and no one cares and people suck. Well, some of that may be true but there are ways to not be alone and to say things people want to hear and do things that people will care about.

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Top 10 Tips for Parenting Defiant Teens

1. Be a role model. Your actions -- even more than your words -- are critical in helping adolescents adopt good moral and ethical standards. If they have a good role model from early on, they will be less likely to make bad decisions in their rebellious teen years.

2. Choose your battles wisely. Doing themselves harm or doing something that could be permanent (like a tattoo) -- those things matter. Purple hair, a messy room -- those don't matter. Don't nitpick.

3. Decide rules and discipline in advance. If it's a two-parent family, it's important for parents to have their own discussion so they can come to some kind of agreement and stay on the same page. Whether you ban them from driving for a week or a month, whether you ground them for a week, cut back on their allowance or Internet use -- whatever -- set it in advance. If your kid says it isn't fair, then you have to agree on what is fair punishment. Then, follow through with the consequences.

4. Discuss "checking-in." Give adolescents age-appropriate autonomy, especially if they behave appropriately. But you need to know where they are. That's part of responsible parenting. If it feels necessary, require them to call you during the evening to check in. But that depends on the teen and how responsible they have been.

5. Give teens some leeway. Giving adolescents a chance to establish their own identity, and giving them more independence, is essential to helping them establish their own place in the world. But if it means he's going out with a bad crowd, that's another thing.

6. Give adolescents a game plan. Tell them: If the only option is getting into a car with a drunk driver, call me -- I don't care if it's 3 in the morning. Or make sure they have cab fare. Help them figure out how to handle a potentially unsafe situation, yet save face. Brainstorm with them. Come up with a solution that feels comfortable for that child.

7. Invite their friends for dinner. It helps to meet children you have questions about. You're not flat-out rejecting them, you're at least making an overture. When children see them, see how their friends act with their parents, they can get a better sense of those friends. It's the old adage, you catch more bears with honey than vinegar. If you flatly say, you can't go out with those children, it often can backfire -- it just increases the antagonism.

8. Keep the door open. Don't interrogate, but act interested. Share a few tidbits about your own day; ask about theirs. How was the concert? How was the date? How was your day? Another good line: You may not feel like talking about what happened right now. I know what that's like. But if you feel like talking about it later, you come to me.

9. Let teens feel guilty. I think too much is made about self-esteem. Feeling good about yourself is healthy. But people should feel bad if they have hurt someone or done something wrong. Children need to feel bad sometimes. Guilt is a healthy emotion. When children have done something wrong, we hope they feel bad, we hope they feel guilty.

10. Talk to adolescents about risks. Whether it is drugs, driving, or premarital sex, your children need to know the worst that could happen.

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