by Katherine Miller

Created on: October 15, 2009

If anyone thinks that schools having the ability to assist teens with birth control takes away from good parenting, then they are absolutely wrong. Does it give teens an avenue to talk with someone honestly and obtain the correct information, hopefully, prior to having sexual relations, then yes! There a million teens out there facing home life challenges, mixed families, no support and no idea who to turn to. School usually offers some sense of stability to a teen, so it makes sense to offer them the support of making correct decisions and supporting them through a very pressured part of their life, and ensuring that they have choices.

I am a parent of six children. At this time I have 4 teenagers in the house, of which one is a sixteen year old girl. I have raised my children to be aware of life, including the hormonal changes and challenges of sex and more importantly the challenges of peer pressure to have sex.

My children are all excellent athletes and students, both my husband and I are very involved in their lives, and subsequently we have met many of their friends which do not always seem to have the same level of support from their respective families.

It is important to understand that many teens want to be responsible but the fact is that we too once were teenagers and our hormones raged and we had the life talks from our parents yet did we have access to the correct methods of birth control, or did we all have understanding parents that we could go to for support, well the answer is no! and the result was underage pregnancy's. In the late 70's when I was in high school five of my friends became mothers. I don't think they were doing anything anyone else wasn't doing, they just weren't informed enough and did not have support to get the right information.

We can bury our heads in the sand, but the fact remains that everyday there are teen pregnancy's that could have been avoided. Teenagers will continue to be teenagers and sex is an integral part of their lives. If we educate better and make assistance more prevalent both in contraception and other avenues for boys as well, as well as providing real sex education that not only educates on pregnancy and disease, but also on the reality of what life holds in the future for single parents, teen parents and uneducated parents, we may get more balance back to society. Even though I know my children in Junior High have had some sex education, it seems to be mostly scare tactics, start educating earlier and smarter, most of the time it is too late once they are in High School and sadly even Middle school.

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