When you have a child, you imagine that child growing into a responsible adult with a successful career with a family, or something to that effect. You never think that your teenage daughter may have an unplanned teen pregnancy because they experimented with sex without using protection. It’s likely that you won’t know your child is having sex unless you happen to see condoms or a pregnancy test in the trash can or in their room. However, you can get a good idea of what your child knows about sex, and about how to prevent unplanned teen pregnancies by talking to them and educating them. Let them know that all their future plans will be put on hold if they do happen to have an unplanned teen pregnancy. That means their dreams will be put on hold, their career, and probably their high school diploma. An unplanned teen pregnancy can change a young girl’s life drastically and permanently. Even young men’s lives can change as they will then be financially responsible for the child they brought into the world through mere experimentation. Educate your child and teach him or her that unplanned teen pregnancy is preventable and that it should be avoided at all costs.

Birth Control

There are many options out there when it comes to birth control, which can prevent unplanned teen pregnancy. There are birth control pills, there’s the shot, there’s the IUD, there are condoms and there’s even the morning after pill. With so many options, you would think that unplanned teen pregnancy wouldn’t be such an issue. Yet the unplanned teen pregnancy epidemic is growing exponentially. More and more young women are getting pregnant and it’s mostly from lack of education. Teach your child about these birth control methods, teach them how to use them and make sure they’re always available just in case.

Smart Decisions

Teach your child that if they are ever faced with a situation in which they are about to have sex, they should stop and assess the situation. This is not going to be easy as sexual desire can easily cloud the mind as far as rational thinking goes. But it can be done. Teach your child that they are about to engage in an activity that could result in an unplanned teen pregnancy. Don’t teach your child that sex is wrong, quite the contrary, but teach them that they should be smart about the sex they do have. Teens are going to have sex. That’s a fact. The more you educate your teen, however, and the more you discuss with them how much their lives will change with an unplanned teen pregnancy, the less likely you’ll be faced with raising a baby having a baby.

Teens are going to experiment with sex; it’s a fact of life. As their body’s change and their hormones change, sex becomes a very important subject. Oftentimes, a teen is not capable of handling sex on a mature and rational level. This leads to all kinds of things, one of those being unplanned teen pregnancy. You should always let your child know that there is teen pregnancy help whenever they need it. There are various ways to go about getting teen pregnancy help. It may be tempting to shield your child from this knowledge so that they don’t get the idea in their heads that it’s ok to have sex, especially risky sex. However, by teaching them where to go about getting teen pregnancy help, you can help them make the right decisions and you can teach them to be responsible and to take responsibility for their actions.

The Parents

Your child should never be afraid to come to you, the parents, for teen pregnancy help. If your child can’t come to you for teen pregnancy help, they may turn to another source which may not be as understanding or caring of your teen’s needs. Always let your teens know that you are always available for anything, whether they need help with peer pressure, bullying, drugs, alcohol and even teen pregnancy help.

The School

Your teen’s school should have a counselor on hand who specializes in dealing with teens and the various problems they face. That means a counselor will be trained to provide teen pregnancy help. The school counselor may feel obligated to contact you, the parents, if your teen comes to them for teen pregnancy help so again, you should be open to the idea of providing help for your teen no matter what it’s for.

Doctors And Planned Parenthood

Teach your child that if they ever need teen pregnancy help and they don’t want to go to you or a counselor, they can always go to a doctor or one of the parenthood facilities such as Planned Parenthood. A doctor or a Planned Parenthood counselor can provide birth control, teen pregnancy help in the form of knowledge and they can also provide options that your teen may not feel comfortable talking about with someone they know, such as a counselor or their own parents.

Just as long as your teen knows that there are many places to get teen pregnancy help, you should be able to prevent your teen from getting pregnant or from getting anyone else pregnant.

Being a teen is hard work. Your body’s changing, your hormones are raging, you may be having an identity crisis and it’s no accident that these years are called the ‘awkward years’. Another difficult thing that teens go through is peer pressure and temptation, especially about sex. Teens are going to experiment with sex and they are even going to have sex and there’s nothing parents or teachers can do about it. If they want to do it, they’re going to do it. However, if they are going to have sex they can at least practice some teen pregnancy prevention. This is where teachers and parents can make a difference. It’s all about education and letting your teen know that you, as a parent, can always be turned to for teen pregnancy help.

Not Alone

Teens can oftentimes feel as though they’re alone in the world. They may feel that nobody understands them or that there’s nobody else going through the same things; but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Let your teen know that they’re not alone. There are others in the world who are going through the same things and you, as the parent, have probably gone through much of it yourself. Teen pregnancy prevention begins by letting your child that what they’re feeling is normal. Everyone goes through it: The feeling of helplessness, of low self esteem, of facing decisions they’re not mature enough to handle, such as sex.

Birth Control

If your teen is having sex or thinking about having sex, you may never, ever know it. Your teen isn’t likely to come to you to ask about teen pregnancy prevention or to tell you about what’s going to happen on prom night at the hotel your teen has booked. Teens have sex, they experiment with sex, and this is all natural. As a parent, however, you need to teach your child teen pregnancy prevention such as how to use birth control, which birth control methods work better than others and you need to implant the idea in their heads that if they don’t have birth control they shouldn’t have sex.

Teen pregnancy prevention takes a lot of love, a lot of understanding and a lot of teaching from you, the parent. If you don’t take the time to talk to your child about teen pregnancy prevention, you may end up raising two children: your teen and the baby she’s about to have.