By Rebecca Roybal Of the Journal
No matter what you tell them, there will always be teen-agers who choose to take chances. So what can parents and the community do to encourage girls and boys to delay having sex and children?
Experts say it has to start at home.
Sandy Dixon, principal of New Futures, a secondary school for pregnant and parenting teens, said the answer is knowing what your children are up to.
"Churches, the Hispano Chamber of Commerce, moms and dads, you must be watching out for your teens," Dixon said. "(Politicians) can make laws and curfews and those things don't work. If parents felt supported, that might work. Kids need to go to school. They need to be in bed (by) a certain hour."
Linda Phillips Lehrer, grants manager for the New Mexico Teen Pregnancy Coalition, said teen pregnancy is an adult problem.
"Adults have control over the resources, the media messages, the poverty and school success," she said. "We forget to acknowledge that kids don't run the world. We do. We control the money. We determine what kind of education the kids get. Kids don't have control over those things. It's real important to understand that teen pregnancy is an adult problem."
Teens are the victims of the act of following adult patterns, she said. That's why intervention and prevention are keys to curbing the high numbers of teen pregnancies.
Some health professionals have said that when teens don't have strong families, they gravitate toward friends who support them -- even if the support is a bad influence.
Hence the need for teens to have access to education on sex and ways of protecting themselves, said Maria Otero, vice president of community outreach for Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood's goal is to promote a healthy self-esteem among young women while instilling in young men a sense of responsibility.
The organization makes presentations at health fairs, schools, detention centers, treatment centers, colleges and universities.
"Our first target is abstinence," Otero said. "But not every youth chooses abstinence, so we tell them about the other choices they have."
At schools, Planned Parenthood can only provide information on birth control. It cannot pass out condoms.
As for students knowing about birth control, "they're getting it, they're just not using it," Dixon said. "They're dating older guys. It's a family issue -- who's watching your daughter?"
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No matter what you tell them, there will always be teen-agers who choose to take chances.
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