Giving Your Teen a Realistic View of Parenthood

There are an estimated one million teen pregnancies each year in this country and not all of them are accidental. Many children have children to have someone to love, to be important, to prove love, or for a host of other reasons. Most don’t realize what parenthood really means. Communicating a realistic view of parenthood to your teen can be a good preventive measure. A teenage girl needs to ask herself:

1. “What are my plans for my own future? How might early parenthood frustrate these?”

2. “Why do I want a baby?” Reasons people of all ages have babies are very personal and are neither intrinsically right or wrong. But having a baby to validate oneself can be unfair to the child who needs more from a parent that he or she can ever give.

3. “What do I expect of my baby?” Does the teen see the baby as a companion, as a fix-it for a faltering relationship or a tiny clone? He or she may be very disappointed by the needy, demanding, imperfect and very individual person a child can be.

An expert in the field of adolescent behavior, Ms. McCoy has authored eleven books on the subject including the best selling “The Teenage Body Book”. Additionally she has written hundreds of articles for major national magazines. Coordinator of the Clinical Ph.D. Program at California School of Professional Psychology and Staff Counselor at the Center for Individual and Family Counseling in North Hollywood, California.