Adolescent Sexuality in Teens Essay

Adolescent sexual urge activity and the resulting consequences construct always been a concern to many societies across legion(predicate) generations. teenagedage motherliness, teenage pargonnthood and teenage infections with knowledgeablely transmitted diseases brings with it unmatched burdens non only to the young affected, and also the society as a whole.In North America, every year more than 45000 adolescents elderly 19 and below become pregnant (Martin, Park, & Sutton, 2002). These rates stick dropped compargond to their recent peak in 1990, with the dec pipeline said to be a result augmentd use of contraceptives amongst the youth. Nevertheless, these childlike pregnancy rates veer from about 50 percent to 550 percent more than the rates in some other European societies (Darroch, Singh, & Frost, 2001). Every year 1 in every four sexually experienced teens (3 million teens) contract sexually transmitted disease and the teen pregnancy result in oer two hund red thousand abortions each year. For those who carry their pregnancy to term, lxxxiii percent glide by out of wedlock. Even in controlled studies adolescent mothers chip in been build to collapse lower education attainment levels.The most trouble thing, however, is the evidence that the burden of adolescent parenthood accrues the greatest impact to members of the bordering generation. Problems normally divide at birth Documented evidence earn shown that pregnant adolescents luck with child(p) birth weight baby and these children of adolescent mothers are more liable(predicate) to exhibit poor cognitive mathematical process and school adjustment than children born to older mothers. In adolescents, researchers have found massive delinquency, failure and risk for early parenthood amongst children of adolescent mothers.Teen Sexuality and Pregnancy Pr eveningtion amongst Adolescents              If sexuality is a devolvening rod in the community, then adolescent sexuality reflects that point where the charges are highest and most unstable. at that maneuver is tension within societies well-nigh the meaning of adolescent sexuality each as a marker or moral decay or as a normal, healthy and natural growth process. The culture revolving around adolescent sexuality has relied heavily on sex education as a preventive measure. There are two opposing line of theory that had been overhauled earlier. One perspective stated that on a simple empirical basis, a sizeable percentage of adolescents become sexually active before reaching 18 years. It further states that educating them about the personality of sexual and its consequences would be one of the most effective means of keep back teenage pregnancies. In this perspective, teenage pregnancy is best prevented by accept a role for teenage sexual activity as healthy, notwithstanding certainly requiring direct and open discussions, accompanied by moral prescriptions.The other t ake care posits that any educative activity that was based on the trust that adolescents may become sexually active as teens cannot help but implicitly support such conduct. Thus, explicit sex education that includes inform in topics such as birth control would antedate to an attach in the view of adolescents on sexual activity as a viable option. Even though, explicit sex education programs might not necessarily encourage such deportments, they were perceived as at least providing a nod suggesting that it is expected. Explicit sex education was see at worst as suggesting that sexual activity is a normative behavior to nave teenagers who would have otherwise not considered it. At a minimum, educational programs have been seen as diminution the teenagers sense that sexual activity is universally seen by adults as in attach before espousal or adulthood. In either case, programs like these were seen as likely to increase the levels of teenage sexual activity, with a very likel y chance that these increases would lead to higher rates of sexually transmitted infections and pregnancies as well.Prevention Programs that work- car park elements              There has been one approach to sexual education programs that have been effective. It combines educational material with a notable amount of skills that revolve around cocky and sexual behaviors. For example, skill based legal profession measures against HIV have been apply in Colorado schools and has been shown to lead to contribute to change magnitude the use of condoms ignore number of multiple sexual partners. Similarly, a successful HIV prevention study in which the education program used included provision in social skills was compared to education only approach, and found the latter intelligibly superior.Research has also shown that combining of information-based programs with other using oriented programs did more than better than interventions that focused on in formation alone in reducing irresponsible sexual behavior and teenage pregnancy rates. Interventions that seek to develop skills in self-efficacy together with the provision of information did a great deal better than programs that tin information alone. Programs that teach about safe sex, while placing a bent of emphasis on responsibility and pride in decision do also seem to do better than programs that only teach safer sex behaviors (Jemmott & Fong, 1998). Finally, programs that narrowly focus on self-denial only are yet to yield any findings. The interpretation of these findings is that emotional and social development components of these prevention programs function as catalysts that help leverage the impact of abstinence or education-based approaches.The idea of preventing adolescent pregnancies, repeat pregnancies, or failures in parenting, by focusing on something else other than sexual behavior may at first seem to be avoidant, foolish or hopelessly indirect. Howeve r, on a closer look of research done on adolescent sexual behavior show that this approach may yield much better results than programs that focus solely on sexual behaviors. It has long been recognised that irresponsible sexual activity tends not to happen in isolation, to occur together with higher levels of substance abuse. This approach states that it makes less sense to view a single behavioral caper in isolation rather, the problem should be seen as part of a unified syndrome that has an underlying risk manifesting itself in many different forms (Bell, 1986). This approach is thought to apply to patterns of tumble-down behavior even in adulthood and starts to shed some light into the research findings discussed above.The impact of programmatic interventions on behaviors such as adolescent sexuality, start to be more plausible if we understand teenage sexual behavior as reflecting underlying problems that might lead to the emergence of a troops of other problematic behaviors. In short, seeing an adolescent as a whole person may be fundamental in work the problem.A solidifying can be learned from this programs and research that reference point teenage sexual behavior. The first is that adolescent pregnancy prevention is come-at-able byways that may seem to be very indirect routes. A lot of evidence has emerged showing that by assisting teenagers to achieve educational success and be in control of their fertility, we are preventing teenage pregnancy in the approach generation. The most important implication is that currently there are some(prenominal) tools that can be used to prevent negative consequence of teenagers sexual behavior.It may make little sense to think back that giving extensive sex education will lower teenage pregnancy rates it seems equally not viable that focusing on abstinence without looking at the broader aspects of social development will have an effect. Long-term interventions can help by helping the youth to have a higher s ense of connection to the larger community, for example, by increasing their sense of self-efficacy, assertiveness, their impulse control and their hope about the future. Teens who are zest for a sense of connection and intimacy are more likely to engage in sexual behavior for which they are not sic for (Allen, 2002). The use of the nutritional model may be particularly appropriate here as these teenagers may be starving for a place within the social world and a sense of connection to the broader society.In short, when we focus on the development of a teenager as a whole person may precisely target those behaviors and developmental factors that are directly connected to preventing risky sexual behavior and its consequences. These programs are likely to build the capacity of youth and can greatly increase their indigence and skill at avoiding risky sexual behavior (Kirby & Coyle, 1997) even if they may not be addressing sexual behavior directly. By giving the youth opportunity t o talk about their feelings, interests and concerns about sexuality, as well as practice negotiation and decision making skills, we will be enabling them to develop their moral framework about sexuality.ReferencesAllen, J. P. (2002). Observed self-direction And Connection With Parents And Peers As Predictors Of Early Adolescent Sexual Adaptation. Paper presented at the Biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Adolescence, New Orleans, LA.Bell, R. Q. (1986). Age particularized Manifestations in Changing Psychosocial Risk. In D. C. Farran & J. D. McKinney (Eds.), The concept of risk in intellectual and psychosocial development. New York Academic Press.Darroch, J. E., Singh, S., & Frost, J. J. (2001). Differences in teenage pregnancy rates among five developed countries the roles of sexual activity and contraceptive use. Family prep Perspectives, 33(6), 244-250.Jemmott, J. B., III, Jemmott, L. S., & Fong, G. T. (1998). Abstinence and safer sex HIV risk-reduction int erventions for African American adolescents. Jama journal of the American Medical Association, 279(19), 1529-1536.Kirby, D., & Coyle, K. (1997). School-based programs to reduce sexual risk-taking behavior. Children & early days Services Review, 19(5-6), 415-436.Martin, J. A., Park, M. M., & Sutton, P. D. (2002). Births Preliminary Data for 2001. National Vital Statistics Reports, 50, public figure 10.Source document