• By law, you are an equal partner in the IEP process; as a general rule, no part of the IEP can be implemented without your approval.
• Your child's first time in special education will follow an initial eligibility IEP.  Thereafter, IEP meetings will be held yearly, focusing on the specifics of your child's current educational program and what next year's IEP will look like.  While the procedures for these two kinds of IEPs (what are called eligibility and program IEPs) are the same, they have some important differences. 
  
• You and the school district must agree to sign an IEP before your child either initially begins special education or begins a new school year.
• Whenever you or your child's school district wants to change your child's current IEP, the district must schedule a new IEP meeting and develop a new written IEP.
• You are entitled to an IEP meeting whenever you feel one is needed - for example, if you have concerns about your child's progress, there are classroom problems or the support or related services or the placement is not working.
• The IEP, once signed by you and the school district, is binding; the school district must provide everything included in that IEP.

Q: With three busy teenagers, our family life is incredibly chaotic. The stress is impacting the kids and our marriage. How can we get our lives back on track? ~  Tim C.,  Bend, Oregon

A: The lives of busy teens that pull for your time, attention and increasingly expensive financial demands (think designer jeans, sports camps, etc.) can put a huge strain on the marriage and the family if not put in check. It's a given you already have your own worries placing a heavy load on you: demands from work, or perhaps you're seeking employment, aging parents, other young children to tend to, health concerns, time demands from community or church, etc. The demands of teenage life happen gradually, but over time when left without checks and balances, boundaries and goals, it can easily overwhelm your life.

First, slow everything down. Get off the frenzy-making merry-go-round long enough for Mom and Dad to identify and agree upon your most important goals as parents and the direction for your family. It is critical that you are in sync and in support of each other. When a strong, healthy marriage faces calamities, they can weather the storm and become stronger.

Weak marriages, however, will crumble under the strain if the weak points are not repaired. If there are weaknesses in your marriage, seek help to repair them. Don't let the busyness of your child's activities become a means of denial. As parents, you are the captain of the ship and your decisions will effect navigating the rough waters and determine whether or not you will resume smooth sailing. 

Next, seek balance in the family. Here are some ways to achieve that.

• As a family, determine your priorities for school, work, family time and extracurricular activities.
• Carefully evaluate demands of extracurricular activities. Can they be cut back? I.e.: one sport per year vs. three? If your child is working, are the hours reasonable?
• Evaluate family time: regular dinner time, activities involving just the family, having fun together. Don't get so caught up in society's expectations that you miss out on teaching your children the all important balance of healthy, fun family time - with a strong emphasis on fun. It may be an eye opener to find out what they think constitutes family fun.
• With priorities identified, decisions can be made about the scheduling of time and use of money.
• Create a family master calendar. Teach your children time management, by requiring they schedule activities/events. Make them responsible for getting it on the master calendar, getting rides set-up (not demanded for), and schedules coordinated.
• Teach your children financial management by creating a budget for their extracurricular activities that they help manage. Create a separate bank account where they can learn how to meet the specific financial demands and how to balance a checkbook.
• Put them in charge of their own laundry and helping with other home duties. It takes a lot to run a family, and you're doing them a favor by helping them prepare to run their own home one day.

 Remember Mom and Dad, you set the pace. You are the most important role model for your children. Model balance, responsibility and a healthy respect for the other members of your family, for each other, and for yourself.

Glenda Gabriel is a strong advocate for parent's rights and the parent-choice industry.

In addition to being the mother of a program graduate, she's worked for many years developing vital parent support services for structured residential boarding schools.

Send questions to ASK GLENDA at  Dore@Dorefrances.com

Family and Parent Coaching

Game Ratings & Descriptor Guide

 The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings are designed to provide concise and impartial information about the content in computer and video games so consumers, especially parents, can make an informed purchase decision.

ESRB ratings have two equal parts: rating symbols suggest age appropriateness for the game and content descriptors indicate elements in a game that may have triggered a particular rating and/or may be of interest or concern.  

To take full advantage of the ESRB rating system, it's important to check both the rating symbol (on the front of the box) and the content descriptors (on the back). 

Content descriptors are not intended to be a listing of every type of content one might encounter in the course of playing a game. For more detail about how ESRB assigns content descriptors, click here.

For the most up to date list of content descriptors and definitions click here.

Recommended Reading

Smoking: Don't Let It Steer You Wrong: Facts for Teens

  Every year almost one million teenage girls become pregnant.
  More than half of them are 17 years old or younger when they have their first pregnancy.
  Approximately one-third of the girls who get pregnant carry their pregnancies to term and keep their babies.
  About another third have abortions, and the other third has spontaneous miscarriages.
 Only about five percent of pregnant girls put their babies up for adoption.
  The United States of America has double the adolescent pregnancy and birth rates of any other industrialized country.
  Less than one-third of teens who have babies before the age of 18 finish high school.
  Almost half of all teen mothers end up on welfare.
  Less than 25 percent of births to teens occur within wedlock.
  The birth rate for teens has been declining in recent years, especially among African American girls (this is good news).

Background

For almost all of human history, women began their careers as mothers when they were teenagers.

Until the years preceding World War II, girls usually got married within a few years of reaching menarche (the first menstrual period), which occurred when the girls were 14 or 15 years old. Since there wasn't any effective form of contraception, they tended to get pregnant soon after the wedding. Indeed, there were more teenage women who became parents in 1960 than there are now, but most of these women were married, or they got married while they were pregnant. The major change in the situation has been the public acceptance of single motherhood along with recognition that women definitely need a complete education, at least through high school, if they are to be financially self-sufficient.

Only about 25 percent of children grow up in a house with both birth parents these days, compared to more than 50 percent just 40 years ago. The increase in numbers of single parents due to divorce has led to a societal acceptance of single parenthood in general, with the consequence of societal acceptance of single teenage mothers as well, even if they've never been married.

Factors That Increase Risk

Let's focus on why some girls, unwed ones more specifically, become parents during their adolescence.

Immaturity
The reader should notice that I did not say choose to become pregnant. Many younger adolescents are not particularly developed in their ability to think as adults until they reach 15 or 16 years of age.

At 12, 13, or 14 years old, adolescents are generally incapable of making decisions based on a reasoned understanding of the future consequences of their actions. Their brains have yet to develop the connections that allow them to think that way.

Teens at this stage live much more in the moment than do older teens or adults. Adolescents often do not connect the actual act of intercourse with the real possibility of having a baby nine months later.

This inability to perceive future consequences of current behavior is called cognitive immaturity.

Personal Myth
As part of growing up mentally, adolescents, especially early adolescents, experience what has been called a personal myth. This means that these teens feel as if they have special protection from risky behaviors and that bad consequences won't happen to them. Fortunately, most of us grow out of this way of thinking by middle adolescence when we start getting more freedom from parental control. If the early adolescents who think this way do not have adequate supervision from parents and are not protected by some of the factors mentioned above, they will be at much higher risk for the onset of sexual activity with all of its consequences.

Low self-esteem
Girls who have low self-esteem or who are depressed may engage in sexual activity as a way of trying to make themselves feel better.

Girls who have parents who are distracted or depressed may also feel the need to seek warmth and nurturing through sexual liaisons. Girls who abuse alcohol or drugs may not make very good choices about sex and contraception. And girls who do not have an effective male role model during their early and mid-adolescent years also may be vulnerable to the attentions of older men from whom these girls seek "fathering" as much as they seek romance and intimacy. These older men, however, are usually not motivated altruistically. They enter these relationships frequently because they find a younger woman easier to control. Some of these girls also are prey to men who want to prove to themselves that they are capable of fathering a child. We do know that on the average, the fathers of babies born to teen moms are at least four years older than the girls. So most of these men are adults, not teens.

Another factor putting girls at risk is lack of knowledge about how to avoid having sex and about contraception if they choose to have sex.

Wanted pregnancy
Finally, some girls get pregnant because they really want to. Some want to get pregnant in order to make their partners happy. Some girls carry the mistaken belief that the babies will give them love and nurturance. And some want to get pregnant because they see other girls in their social circles getting increased attention and what seems to them increased material benefit by being mothers.

These girls tend not to have a real understanding of the negatives of adolescent parenthood.

Possible Solutions

Alleviation of some of the factors mentioned above might have a real impact on the pregnancy rate among adolescents in this country. Actions that we as a society could take include:

 Detecting girls with depression/low self-esteem when they are children or in very early adolescence.
  Doing all we can to ensure that girls have effective male role models, especially if their natural fathers are not active in their lives.
 Making sure that all teens are educated in how to avoid unwanted sexual activity.
 Making sure all teens know about effective contraception if they do choose to have sex.
 Making sure that teens know the risks that are caused by alcohol and drug use and that those with substance abuse problems are detected and treated.

One further factor that might diminish the sexual risks that adolescents take is to have a consistent and healthful portrayal of sex and its consequences in our media. This country has an obsession with sex in advertising and in entertainment, but the media usually doesn't show the negative consequences of having sex. Frequently, people on TV or in the movies are depicted as having sex without consequences.

The media also does a very poor job of showing kids how adults who are responsible act in situations in which they might engage in sex.

Do popular TV shows depict characters actively saying that they probably ought not to have sex because pregnancy might ensue? Pressure by parents on companies that sponsor these programs could be a big help in this area.

Conclusion

Adolescence is a period in which the sexual self becomes developed and in which it is natural to want to discover one's capabilities. As responsible adults, we ought to be providing our young people with the guidance and tools needed to get through this period in good shape, unencumbered by too early parenthood or the need for abortions.

Resources in the United States:

America's Pregnancy Helpline
1-888-4-OPTIONS - provides counseling and information regarding pregnancy options.

Emergency Contraception Information Project
1-888-NOT-2-LATE (1-888-668-2528)

National Office of Post Abortion Trauma
1-800-593-2273

Planned Parenthood
1-800-230-PLAN - 24 hour hotline will direct you to the clinic nearest to you.

Post-Abortion Project Rachel
1-800-5WE-CARE

The Independent Adoption Center
1-800-877-6736

Learn more about HFS's unique services for troubled teens and their families