Teens Getting Sex Disinfo On the Web: What To Do?
The rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases have been rising among teens. Unfortunately, those teens who comb the web for their sex education will often get disinformation. So what’s a concerned parent to do?
It’s a very touchy subject.
The statistics about teen sexual health released earlier this year by the CDC are depressing:
- There were approximately 745,000 pregnancies among U.S. females under age 20 in 2004.
- About 1 million adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in 2006.
- Nearly a quarter of females aged 15-19 years, and 45 percent of those aged 20-24 years, had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.
Recently, The New York Times described how some teens are getting frank answers to their questions about sex through their cell phones: “Programs in Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco allow young people to text a number, select from a menu of frequently asked questions (“What 2 do if the condom broke”) and receive automated replies, with addresses of free clinics. Last month, California started HookUp 365247, a statewide text-messaging service. The texter can type a ZIP code and get a local clinic referral, as well as weekly health tips.”
The Birds and Bees Text Line is a similar service set up by the Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, in Durham.
Below are the websites recommended by Standford Medical School researcher Sophia Yen, who led the study on accuracy of information about sexual health on websites.
You probably want to take a look at any website before you pass the url over to your teenager.
And remember, giving your teen access to a primary care doctor or nurse practitioner that they trust and feel comfortable talking with is a crucial part of their health care. A friend of mine whose son had such a pediatrician loves to tell me how even today, at the age of 26, if he has a potentially embarrassing question, her son still calls his pediatrician.
The best part? The pediatrician always takes his calls.
About This Post
This is an incredibly helpful post. I have two teenage daughters, so I will pass on this information to them. My question is why aren’t parents talking to their kids about sex? Last week, my older daughter, high school senior, told me she thinks the reason she’s still a virgin is because my husband and I don’t make sex taboo in our family. We’re open, we joke about it, and we talk about the emotional aspects of sex. One of her friends told me she resents her parents for just handing her condoms and telling her not to get pregnant. They didn’t talk to her about why it would be a good idea to wait to have sex because physical relationships have lots of consequences besides pregnancy. She suffered a lot of heartache, with different partners, between the ages 15 and 18 before she really figured it out.
Are parents really that squeamish?
Great post. Neither of my gorgeous teenage girls, 15 and 17, are sexually active. If parents weren’t so squeamish or religious righteous with their heads in the sand, we wouldn’t be having such a problem in this country. The funny thing is, a lot of the parents whose kids are getting pregnant were having sex in high school. Why is it so hard to talk about the emotional consequences of having sex too soon and all of the reasons WAITING is actually need fulfilling for THEM?
Good for you Trish. There are so many things parents should talk to their kids about, but this is one of the ones with the greatest consequences.