Recently in Teens Category
A concise article on the internet, porn, cybersex addiction and sexting, and how parents can help prevent access or help teens deal with what they've seen.
A simple comic book style video game from Canada and the UK, created with help from 8 teens. It asks several sex and STI (STD for you Yanks)-related questions. Get one wrong, and the Sperminator will get you! All questions seem to be true/false, and all answers have explanations. Not a bad tool.
http://tinyurl.com/y8hkmg9
Young people commonly engage in risky sexual behaviors and increasingly are at risk for STDs and pregnancy, according to (CDC).http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5806a1.htm
The report analyzes sexual health and behavior data. The latest findings indicate:
- A majority of 18 and 19 year olds report having had sex.
- Approximately 30% of males and females ages 15-17 say they have had sex.
- Roughly 30% of 15-19 years olds report having multiple partners.
Of course it took Harvard to figure this out, but it seems, from a small sample of racially and ethnically diverse parents and kids, that parents are missing the boat when it comes to timing their sex talks with kids. This study is unique in that rather than being a retrospective account of when parents talked to kids, it was concurrent.
The researchers surveyed parents about the timing of dicsussion of different sex related topics with the stage of sexual activity they thought their kids had experienced.The kids did the same thing - except they reported the sexual activity they had engaged in at the time of the conversation.
Guess what? Time and again, the parents underestimated the level of sexual activity their kids had engaged in. For example, a parent talked to their child about wet dreams and said they thought their child had been kissed. The child reported they had experienced genital touching. Whoops!
Bottom line. Start talking about everything before they're sexually active. It will serve them well.
Check out the charts! http://tinyurl.com/ydnkf95
Young people commonly engage in risky sexual behaviors (sex at a young age and/or unprotected sex) and increasingly are at risk for STDs and pregnancy, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The report, Sexual and Reproductive Health of Persons Aged 10--24 Years --- United States, 2002—2007, analyzes sexual health and behavior data from a number of surveillance systems. The latest findings indicate:
- A majority of 18 and 19 year olds (70.6% of females; 64.7% of males) report having had sex.
- Approximately 30% of males and females ages 15-17 say they have had sex.
- Roughly 30% of 15-19 years olds report having multiple partners.
More than two-thirds of adolescents say they’ve received guidance in using contraceptives, and nearly 70% of male and females ages 15-19 used condoms at first intercourse.
Still, sexually transmitted Infections (STIs) are increasing among young people, and the authors say the numbers may reflect the advent of better screening programs. Regardless, the news isn’t encouraging: In 2006, nearly 22,000 youth were living with HIV, and approximately 1 million had a reportable sexually transmitted infection (chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis).
What do teens and adults really think?
Take a minute and check out this report from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy – one of my favorite resources to keep up with teens and sex.
It’s called “With One Voice – America’s Teens and Adults Sound Off About Teen Pregnancy” and is chock full of some very interesting information. One of the most interesting things is how differently adults and teens see the same issues.
Nearly 50% of teens say their parents are the most influential when it comes to making decisions about sex, while only 34% of parents believe this to be the case. Or this little nugget: 89% of parents say they’ve had a “meaningful” conversation about sex and about 71% of teens say they have. A wee disconnect there, huh?
66% of teens agree that their parents don’t know what to say, when or how to say it when it comes to sex. The good news is that 88% of parents think this too. So we’ve managed to fake it pretty well! I’d love to see the percentage of teens that think we don’t know what we’re doing somewhere in the 20% range.
What can you do to help bring this number down? I suspect that by just opening the door to conversations, their opinions will begin to shift.
Read the whole thing – lots of diagrams, so easy reading!
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/national-data/pdf/WOV2007_fulltext.pdf
I was so honored this week to give the keynote speech for the organization Healthy Start. Healthy Start provides parenting support to young parents - under 22 years old. Their youngest client was 14 and their average client is 17.
These young parents are paired with a mentor and a social worker and between the two of them, get so much support and information that they are probably better parents than those of us with "everything."
One of the pieces of support they provide is information about birth control and condom use. These girls are encouraged to wait to have a second baby, and guess, what? It works.
The national average for teen girls having a second baby is nearly 30%. This means that a third of teen mama's have another kid with in a few years of the first.
When a young person goes through the Healthy Start program, her second birth rate is...drum roll please...3%.
Yes, I said 3%.
This program has a big impact on the young people it helps, and in turn, a big impact on our community. These babies are being given the gift of healthy, savvy parenting and while they may not know it in the moment, they'll know it in the long run.
Remember, these kids are going to grow up to take care of us in our old age, to be our doctors and lawyers, our grocery checkers and our grandchildren's teachers. Don't they deserve to have the best start possible?
If you want to help this program continue, please make a donation. www.healthystartfamilies.org
Tyra Banks, supermodel and talk show hostess has been doing some research and oh boy, are the results scary.
She had an anonymous survey on her website this summer and over 10,000 teenage girls and young women responded.
I don’t think this was a particularly scientific study – I can’t find a copy of the actual study – and the respondents were all viewers of her show. I am not sure of the demographics, but I do know that her show is watched by women aged 18 to 34.
Regardless, it’s pretty shocking, what these girls are up to in terms of their sexual activity – like having sex at 15 and at school!
If you go to the link below, you can read some of the comments from some of the girls.
http://tyrashow.warnerbros.com/2008/11/sex_drugs_and_violence_what_ar.php
And here’s a recap of an interview with Tyra on the TODAY show.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/27706917/?GT1=43001
Great news from the Guttmacher Institute – the teen abortion rate has declined a whole bunch since 1974.
It’s dropped from 33% in 1974 to 17% in 2004. It took 30 years, but progress is progress, right?
The reason for the drop? Increased use of birth control and the availability of more effective methods. And for the record, the drop started before we had federally funded Abstinence Only programs, so we were already on the right track.
The only bad news in this good news is Black and Hispanic women obtain abortions at a rate 3 to 5 times higher than that of white women. Throw in a good dose of poverty, and the numbers increase.
Historically, these women are poorer and have less access to healthcare than the majority of white women – even white teenagers.
We need to think about what we can do to help young and poor women gain access to birth control. Voting for a candidate who sees the connections between poverty, access to birth control and abortion, is probably a good placed to start.
