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Running head: COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE ON ADOLESCENT ISSUES

Community Perspective on Adolescent Issues

Teri Miskin

CHILD 320

Brigham Young University Idaho

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COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVE ON ADOLESCENT ISSUES
For this assignment I have chosen to study birth control/risky sexual behavior when it

comes to the community’s perspective on adolescent issues. With a rise in hormones I feel this

topic is very important when it comes to adolescence and their safety. If adolescence choose to

take part in sexual activity it is better for them to take safe measures than be reckless and expose

themselves to harmful diseases and even pregnancy at a young age. In this paper I will be talking

about two different articles that I have found that talk about my chosen topic of birth

control/risky sexual behavior.

I decided to search “birth control” in the Seventeen teen magazine. There were a few

different articles geared towards birth control but none that really talked about safety when it

came to sexual activity. I did however, find an article called “Teen Birth Control & STD

Resources”. This led me to multiple sources that talk all about sexually transmitted diseases and

birth control. This article with the sources is geared towards teens but I feel is biased since most

of the links are to “Planned Parenthood”.

I checked out a few of the links given in this article and a few of them didn’t exist

anymore. I would say because of this aspect of the links not existing that the article isn’t as

useful as it could be. Most of the links that do work only talk about what an STD is and

treatment for one. I feel that it would be more useful to teach preventative measures to young

woman than trying to back track after the fact. However, with the information that is given I

think it’s useful if young woman is trying to research different STD’s and the harmfulness of

them.

This article is based off of a lot of facts and doesn’t have many personal thoughts to it. I

feel there could be more thoughts given to help young woman know what direction they should

be looking if they find this article. The article is very objective towards STD’s and less towards
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birth control. I also feel that there could be more links to different cites that teenage girls can

look into. I know that there are a lot of teens that go onto these teen magazine websites and these

organizations geared towards their age. I feel that with the knowledge that teenagers are using

these sites for information should give anyone creating the cite more incentive to help the teen as

a whole when looking for answers to certain questions.

I feel like this article would be great for those that are curious about the risks of unsafe

sexual activity. I think that learning about STD’s on their own would be frightening enough to

try and prevent them. I feel it would be beneficial for a parent or guardian to use this article to

teach about unsafe sexual activity to young men and woman. Even though this article is geared

towards young woman it takes two to cause a sexually transmitted disease. It’s important to

remind these teens that they aren’t invincible and there are lots of risks involved with the choices

they make.

The website that I chose to research is called “Power to Decide”. This website is mostly

geared towards choosing when to get pregnant and when not to. Although this website is for

young men and woman I feel it is mostly geared towards young woman and choosing how to

practice safe sex as well as how to choose when the right time to get pregnant is. An article that I

chose to read more in depth on this website is titled “Teen Pregnancy”. This article stated a lot of

facts about teen pregnancy and how over the years the number of teen pregnancies has gone

down while the means for birth control have gone up.

This article was very useful in many ways when it comes to encouraging safe sex. First, I

feel that the author did really well at making the reader want to make a difference in the world.

The article talked about how powerful woman are and how much they can change the world if

they practice safe sex and don’t become a teen mom. There were a lot of really good statistics
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that helps promote what was being taught about safe sex and teen pregnancies. I also really like

how it talks about those that have a higher chance of having a teen pregnancy. If a young woman

were to read that the situation they are in might cause them to be more susceptible to a teen

pregnancy they might try to take extra percausions to prevent it from happening.

The article was objective in the way that it only talked about preventing pregnancies and

not what to do if a teen gets pregnant. It also didn’t talk about different ways to practice safe sex

but still I feel the article was enough to make me want to research more on my own. However,

on its own the article didn’t hold enough ground to teach safe sexual behavior.

I feel this article would be very beneficial to young woman of all ages. These day’s

woman fight for what they think is equality and being a strong independent woman. This article

would be great for those young women that want to make a difference in the world and hold a

position where they don’t feel bogged down by having an unexpected or early pregnancy. This

article talks about the statistics of graduating high school and college if they get pregnant as a

teen and I feel it’s very inspirational.

In conclusion I feel both these articles are very useful when it comes to certain aspects of

safe sex and the risks they hold. I don’t feel I found much information available that talked about

how to practice safe sex. However, as a parent that I would want my teen as well as other teens

being informed on how to practice safe sexual activities even if they don’t partake in sexual

behaviors. It’s better to prevent the situation than to make it worst and finding out a child has an

STD or is pregnant. I love the idea these articles are going in and hope that teens will be able to

make the right choice by researching these great websites and choosing to practice safe sex.
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References

Koday, D. (2017, July 21). Resource. Retrieved from https://www.seventeen.com/health/sex-

health/advice/a4459/birth-control-and-std-resources/

Why It Matters. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://powertodecide.org/what-we-do/information/why-

it-matters