Parenting Should Be Required In High School

Picture this, she is sixteen, overjoyed and excited. That time has come, kicking, screaming, shouting, and crying. Nurses in and out of the room, monitors going off, family standing there as their support system. This describes a typical labor process for most women. What most people do not know is that they are not typically prepared for the worst, or prepared at all. Having a baby is an enormous responsibility that people should be prepared for and educated about. The debate about having these classes in high school has its merits, but ultimately, these classes are too important to discontinue. For several reasons, students should be required to take a parenting class in high school.

Should teens be required to take child development classes and parenting classes while in high school? Of course they should be required to take child development and parenting classes! They should be required to take these classes to learn the ins and outs of being a parent. This will lower the amount of single parents, create more effective parents, and make sure they are prepared.

Due to the rise of teenage pregnancy and the heavy costs that is incurred, legislature should enact a law making it mandatory that teens receive birth control. Early teenage pregnancy risks the teens educational future and other life opportunities. In addition, taxpayers now are paying an estimated $20 billion a year to take care of the infants that our teens are now having.

Also, schools that hand out condoms students are less likely to have unsafe sex than schools that don’t (ACLU). Research shows that when teenagers are required to get parental permission, more 15% of them would rather have unsafe sex than get parent permission. A law that requires teenager to gain parental permission before receiving contraceptives will have some harmful consequences (Guttmacher Institute). One half of new HIV cases in America come from adolescents, 3 million teenagers get an STD, and almost 900,000 girls become pregnant (ACLU). These results will rise if teenagers are required to get parent

If teenagers had easy access to birth control and condoms, then teen pregnancies would start to decrease because they would be aware of how to be safe. They would use the help if they were informed on how to get contraceptives and where to get them from. There is a television show on MTV called Teen Mom; it’s all about 4 teenage girls who happened to get pregnant at a younger age than they expected. This show explains their life and the struggle they had to go through because they weren’t prepared when it came to sex. 3 out of the 4 girls kept their child and began to realize how hard it was. Those 3 girls also weren’t successful in their relationship due to the fact that they weren’t mature enough to balance out their life and 2 of them hadn’t even finished college yet because, they had to reorganize their lifestyle. In the show they have often mentioned that if they knew more about birth control and other ways to be protected; their chances of pregnancy would have been lower. Being a mother isn’t fun when you haven’t fully lived through your teenage years; if contraception was more available teenagers would not have to worry about being a mother at such a young

Tax payers have to pay a small fortune every year because of costs associated with teen pregnancies. The American people had to cover $9.4 billion in expenses in 2010 ("About Teen Pregnancy"). High school dropout rates are obscenely high amongst teen mothers. Approximately 50% of women who give birth during adolescence will go on to graduate high school ("About Teen Pregnancy"). This causes the young mother to be at a higher risk for poverty and a lowers the amount of opportunities to be successful. Children being born into broken homes are more likely to follow in their parent’s footsteps. Students whose families aren’t intact are less likely to receive sexual education, and are more likely to have a teenage pregnancy (Kohler, et al. 347-48). Teenage pregnancy is a problem which compounds as it progresses unless it is controlled in an effective way. In this case, that is teaching at safe

“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future,” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States). Our future is in the hands of all the students today, however, society cannot reach its full potential with the copious amount of teen pregnancies and abuse due to uneducated and unprepared parents. In order to prevent these problematic effects of unqualified parents, high school students must cooperate with schools to become educated about caring for our future generation properly and effectively. Schools are the only institutions capable of the widespread implementation of parenting education. Therefore, parenting classes should be mandatory for all high school students in the United States of America.

To truly understand how to lower teen pregnancy, one has to look at the statistics. The following quote from Stranger-Hall’s essay exemplifies this; “After accounting for other factors, the national data show that the incidence of teenage pregnancies and births remain positively correlated with the degree of abstinence education across states: The more strongly abstinence is emphasized in state laws and policies, the higher the average teenage pregnancy and birth rate.” (Stranger-Hall, 6) Variations on how strongly abstinence is emphasized also leads to variations in effectiveness of reducing teenage pregnancy. Abstinence only education emphasizes that the only way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy is to completely abstain from sex until marriage. These programs typically don’t cover means of contraception, and if they do it is usually only to discuss its ineffectiveness. Where comprehensive education differs is that while it too covers abstinence, it also discusses various methods of birth control, as well as sexually transmitted diseases. Despite what the U.S. government supports, it has been shown that comprehensive sexual education does in fact lower teenage pregnancy

I assert that if a school failed to educate their student by taking an abstinence-only approach in sex ed, then they have failed as instructors and should compensate for their ineffective measures of teaching. I also believe that students will frequently engage in sexual activity regardless of whether or not there is the existence of daycare services in their schools and such services do not motivate kids to be more irresponsible. Most of the students have certain desires for their futures and completion of education, so if a baby were to become a factor surely these students would want a way to continue progression in their education. Daycare at schools could be the solution student parents are hoping for when facing the issue of a child hindering their schooling. The argument that government is a problem in the US is correct; however, claiming that school daycare contributes to the issue is incorrect because in reality if the students were offered these services they could further their education and eventually build a career for themselves-- which ultimately avoids these students dropping out and having to use welfare in the future. The reality is that if a student becomes a parent, he or she was most likely not properly educated on safe sex which is the fault of the school itself for avoiding such conversation in classrooms. Schools should provide daycare for students who are parents because if teen pregnancy is present then school failed in its teachings and attempts to benefit its students and owes it to them to provide support as a result of the school’s faulty sexual

Now most abortions are from women who are in their twenties. But there are still many teenagers that go through with this procedure at a young age. If we could educate are kids about safe sex, during their middle school and high school years, that would drop a drastic amount of teen pregnancies. There should be an actual class where kids are required to take and pass, so they will know the outcome of their decisions. If you teach kids at a young age about sexual education, that will end up being a subconscious thought. When we do not educate our youth, we are most likely to repeat the past. I believe that our educators should be able to have these conversations with students, because the more they know, the better off they will be. Many people might argue that teaching kids about sex should be up to the parents, but many parents today lack the ability to have conversations with their children. We live in a different world today, and conversations like this need to happen. Pregnancies is not the only affect from unprotected sex. Teenagers can get sexually transmitted diseases from not using proper protection while having sex. This will not stop kids from having unprotected sex, but if we try to prevent it, then we might end up lowering the teen pregnancy

Parents should consider speaking with teenage daughters about the necessity of birth control to bring awareness of sexually transmitted disease, pregnancy, and teen drop outs. It’s stated that 10,000 teens and young adults are contracting HIV between the age of (13-24), and many of them have multiply partner which puts them at a high risk of contracting a STD or HIV. So many teens are sexually active, but are not using protection which causes them to become pregnant. Statistic states that children who are born to teenage mothers has a high chance of having health problems, dropping out of school, incarcerated, and giving birth at a young age. Teenagers who get pregnant in high school tends to drop out. If they drop out that will not have the skills and credentials to function in today’s society and work place.

Even teen girls who get pregnant should not have an abortion, they knew the consequences of having sexual relations with a guy also they knew that there are ways of protection but say they did not, then we need to strive to make sex education a bigger study in school. “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey say that 47% of all high school students say they have had sex, and 15% of high school students have had sex with 4+ partners their lifetime.” (State Policies On Sex Education In Schools). So not only would girl be getting help to avoid pregnancy and abortions, they would be getting help to avoid

The hardest part of being a parent is sending your child off to college. It is a very tragic moment for the parents. Seeing their child grow up and to finally let them go. It's a tough job. Most teens who are freshmen at college are already considered adults. So should parents be allowed to have access to their child's grades and attendance?

Endersbe, “Almost 500,000 babies are born to teen mothers each year.”(Endersbe,1) but many teen parents do not plan for a child or even consider wanting one. There are more girls getting pregnant now than there was 20 years ago and most schools in the US have a course that can inform them on the precautions in having sex at a young age and that teen pregnancy is something that they can prevent. These courses or programs teach young adults to be safe and hold off on sex. However, schools are enforcing the use of contraceptives if teens do choose to engage in sex. Because Americans encourage safe sex they want to teach young minds to be safe and use protection. With the knowledge that teens developed about safe sex, there are now “78% of teens using contraceptives during sexuual intercourse.” (Endersbe, 6) which is a good

Even though many are getting pregnant there are also many who don’t get pregnant. They aren’t getting pregnant because they are getting protection. Joyce Tsai states, “…teen pregnancy rates have declined 51 percent and teen births are down 61 percent…” (1) which is a big improvement for teens. Some teenagers are irresponsible and don’t use protection when they are having sex so the girl gets pregnant and they don’t know what to do. Schools are also helping teens be a little more prepared and responsible about their sex lives. A woman from Planned Parenthood in Mar Monte says “…the move to offer condoms to middle school students at school-based health centers, where nurses, counselors and trained professionals can help students make more responsible decisions, is more important than ever.”(Tsai 2). She explains that students will be more responsible if they get everything they need at school by professionals. There are parents who are outraged by this because they think giving students condoms is a bad influence for them to have sex. As a result of that research has proven giving condoms to these students does not encourage them to become sexually active in any way. One parent says it is their responsibility to teach their kids about sex, “I’m one of those parents that believes in being open with my kids… it comes down to parents to teach their kids values and morals…” (Tsai 2). Even though many teens are