Over the past few decades there has been a drastic change in sexual behavior among teenagers. It is quite glaring that teen females have gradually become more liberated and sexually aggressive, to the point of being promiscuous. There is absolutely an upheaval in the sexual context of what is socially acceptable and what is not. Teenage behavior has changed dramatically and it appears to veer toward homosexual behaviors. There seems to be more awareness of sex-linked diseases and teenage pregnancy has generally become more acceptable.

Whatever norms that society has set in the past seem to have gone out the window. Some teens create their own norms based on what they “feel” instead of what is socially acceptable as appropriate behavior. Sadly, some teens have the notion that if something feels good, then it should be okay. No one can argue that sex is going to feel good. It should feel good because it was designed that way, but it doesn’t mean that it is appropriate all the time.

Sex ought to be something quite intimate – almost sacred, but it has become an art among today’s teenagers. Teens have found ways to engage in sex without inducing pregnancy. Sex itself has become a multi-million dollar industry. People know that sex sells, especially among teens. Go to the mall and you’ll see public displays of sexuality in some of the windows of shops. Go online and it’s basically the same scenario. You may even hear negative comments from teens about such stores yet they still have a strong desire to shop in such stores. Sex now has a price tag and is currently marketed as being fulfilling and romantic. It is apparently safe and easy and one can simply walk away with no strings attached.

Such a radical shift in the concept of sex among teenagers has been largely influenced by media, by peers, and by the culture and locations in which they live. There are three reasons why teens engage in sex as some form of recreation. These include irresponsible parents, puberty and desire, and the need for love. As soon as the word love comes into the picture, the green light for having sex greatly increases. If a boy professes love for a girl, then she becomes more likely to succumb to sexual pressure than if he doesn’t.

Parents need to constantly show their love to their teens because if the need for love is being met, they won’t have to look for it in the arms of another teen. Parents need to explain the emotional impact and the repercussions that come along with giving one’s sexuality to another. They need to help teenagers look past the fleeting pleasure derived from sex. Teens should learn to set lifetime goals for the future and consider whether having a child would fit into those goals. By having a clear set of goals for the future, teens won’t be easily swept by a sudden surge of emotions and they would be smart enough to gauge whether having a child is worth the risk of engaging into a momentary act of passion. Finally, parents must impart the value of self-control. Talk to your teen, explain to them how modern society is portraying sexuality and personal convictions. Keep them informed so they won’t be tempted to try something that they would regret later on.

Today’s teenagers have been stereotyped as adventurous and harebrained individuals.  They are generally fond of experimenting with things until they get in touch with drugs, sex, guns, alcohol among others. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures, 16,000 young adults die each year from unintentional injuries and accidents.  The most common justification for teenagers’ care-free attitude is that their brains just aren’t developed enough to know better. However, recent research shows that in some cases the fact is just the opposite, the brain matures not too slowly but perhaps, too quickly.

According to a psychiatrist, an adolescent who engages in more dangerous activities have white-matter pathways that seem to be more mature than those of risk-averse youths.  White-matter is the brain’s wiring, the neutral pathways that connect the various gray-matter regions of the cerebrum that are independent of one another.  Having a mature white-matter is necessary because it allows faster brain processing speed.  Nerve impulses also travel faster in mature white-matter. Experiments also reveal that the more mature the look of the brain, the more adventurous the teenager tended to be.
Another possible explanation is that some teenagers whose brains develop more rapidly than others become uncomfortable and a little confused owing to the gap between their biological capabilities and the social norms they must follow as kids. Precocious development of these neural tracts may make some adolescents more susceptible to engage in behaviors that society considers too adult in nature for their chronological age. It is also a common notion that teens make dumb decisions because their brains are immature. In other words, having a more mature brain may actually motivate some teens to try out new and potentially harmful experiences.
For now, these theories are mere speculation, and the researchers concede that the interaction of white and gray matter is so complex that hard conclusions remain elusive. The results of the study are relatively bare and by no means conclusive. The human brain is so intricate in nature, and one has to consider the fact that there are other factors that come into play such as the environment and certain genetic predispositions that are equally complex to study.

This is a very sad and disturbing story and it is one that should be prevented from ever happening again. Having a baby is not bad at all but kids having kids? That is just plain stupid and deliberately doing it for the sake of a pact, like a game just makes it more harder to accept.

I think that teens should be given certain freedoms to make their own decisions, even letting a couple of mistakes slide so that they can learn from it. But limitations have to be set and it has to stop sometime because there are mistakes that are too big to ignore. We are talking about 34 lives that are going to be directly and adversely affected by their decisions after all, provided that none of them have twins. I really hope that this is just an isolated incidence in one town and not a fad thats going to sweep the nation.

A report from the suburbs has some surprising news about children growing up in the culture of affluence. It’s a longitudinal study and the interesting finding is that the kids have a multitude of adjustment problems. The surprise is that they often have more problems than age-matched kids growing up in the inner city—and their problems persist despite the mental health services presumably available to them.

Beyond a certain point, the researchers found, the pursuit of status and material wealth by high-earning families (say, $120,000 and above) tends to leave skid marks on the kids, but in ways you might not have expected. Affluent suburban high schoolers not only smoke more, drink more, and use more hard drugs than typical high schoolers do—they do so more than a comparison group of inner-city kids. In addition, they have much higher rates of anxiety and, in general, higher rates of depression.

Among affluent suburban girls, rates of depression skyrocket—they are three times more likely than average teen girls to report clinically significant levels of depression. And for all problems, the troubles seem to start in the seventh grade. Before then, the affluent kids do well.

Interestingly, among the upper-middle-class suburban kids, but not among the inner-city kids, use of alcohol and drugs is linked with depression and anxiety. That raises the possibility that substance use is an attempt to self-medicate.

 What’s more, this so-called negative-affect type of substance use tends to endure; it doesn’t disappear after the teen years. The researchers also found that among the suburban boys, popularity with peers went hand in hand with substance use.

What’s it all about? In part, the affluent kids are responding to achievement pressures. Rates of depression, anxiety, and substance use were high among those whose families overemphasized their accomplishments and who saw achievement failures as personal failures.

Isolation—emotional as well as literal—from adults also played a big role. Where the demands of the parents’ own professional careers eroded relaxed family time, and the kids shuttled between various after-school activities, distress and substance use among the young were high.

Accessibility counts. “A common assumption is that parents are more accessible to high- than to low-income youth, but our data showed otherwise,” the researchers reported. Wealthier kids didn’t feel closer to parents or spend more time with them at the dinner table, for example.

Eating dinner with at least one parent on most nights turned out to be a big deal. It predicted both adjustment and school performance—at both economic extremes.

Why do affluent kids have so many problems if their families can easily afford to get professional help for them? Maybe, the investigators suggested on the basis of other research, the parents aren’t eager to delve into problems that are not conspicuous—unless symptoms include those that inconvenience adults, such as disobedience.

Privacy concerns and embarrassment may also keep parents from attending to invisible problems. They may need to maintain a veneer of well-being. Then there are all the inconveniences of daily life that impede them—the demands of their very high-powered careers that provide so well for their families. “Few families would blithely repudiate such rewards,” the researchers concede.

Here’s the kicker: Even if the kids of the affluent got all the mental health care they need, something irreplaceably protective would still be missing from their lives: strong attachments with parents. Research shows that you can’t relieve “crystallized maladjustment” as long as kids’ everyday lives still present major challenges.

So what’s to be done? First and foremost, say the researchers, be aware of the costs of overscheduled and competitive lifestyles. Second, understand the risks affluence poses to healthy adjustment of children. And a third measure seems self-evident: Make dinner a command performance for all family members.

Go here to read the resource article by Hara Estroff Marano