Risky Adolescent Sexual Behavior:
The Lack of Parental Supervision and Family Structure
At the brink of the twenty-first century, some of the most controversial social issues come from the lack of parental supervision and family structure in the home; some of these issues include teenage pregnancy, statutory rape and the possibility of engaging in sexual activities that result in catching one or more sexually transmitted diseases. One might have a belief that engaging in sexual activity at a young age or before marriage is an immoral act. However, when adolescents grow up by themselves, they struggle to learn a normal sense of morality. Thus, lack of parental supervision and family ...view middle of the document...
Further research (Aaslma, Liu, Wiehe, 2009) led to the conclusion that, “For pre-teen females, decreased friend monitoring was related to high problem behavior; for teen females, lower maternal support and decreased home monitoring were significant.”(p.61). When a child hangs around the wrong crowd and there is no one there to acknowledge the fact that the child is hanging around “bad company” there is a possibility that through peer pressure, wrong decisions will be made.
Although there are beliefs that parents are supposed to educate their children on proper sexual behavior, some people believe that parents don’t have to put in much effort; This is because in present times sexual education is being taught through the school system. Shin et al., (2011) states in the article “Sex Education During The School-Aged Years Influences Sexual Attitudes and Sexual Health in College: A Comparative Study from Korea.”: “Sex education can influence school-aged children to form unbiased sexual attitudes when they become young adults.”(p. 328). Some people believe that Sexual education being taught in schools promotes positive sexual behavior and also provides an outlet for children to learn about sexual intercourse if the proper behavior is not being taught at home. With Sexual education being taught in schools country-wide, the question then becomes “why is teenage pregnancy still such a controversial issue today?”
Sexual education may be efficient within the schools that offer sexual education classes, but within those schools and the schools that don’t offer sexual education, there is still an issue occurring; that issue would be teenage pregnancy. Teenage Pregnancy is one of the most controversial issues faced in the United States currently. In this case the phrase “babies raising babies” portrays the circumstances exactly. Although lack of parental supervision is not the only reason that teenage pregnancy occurs, it does play a role in it happening. Miller (2002) explains in his article “Family Influences on Adolescent Sexual and Contraceptive Behavior”: “Family structural and contextual characteristics influence adolescent pregnancy risk through both sexual behavior and contraceptive use” (p.24). Society often views a normal family structure as that of a family that consist of both parents; however, if a child is raised in a home where there is only a mother or only a father certain aspects of their life as they develop into young adults may go astray. Miller (2002) quotes in the article, “Family relationships and adolescent pregnancy risk: A research synthesis”, “With respect to parents' marital status, many studies consistently show that living with a single parent is related to adolescents being more likely to have had sexual intercourse” (Miller, Benson, & Galbraith, 2001). A young girl, for example, growing up in a household with no mother, may not only have sex because she possibly wasn’t raised with the right mindset as to how she should...
