Across the United States, school systems are developing alternative educational programs for female teenagers who become pregnant as well as alternative education programs for both male and female teenagers who are parents. If your teen is experiencing the life challenge of caring for a young child while still in high school, it is important to know what options may be available through your public school system.
While some school districts continue to encourage pregnant and parenting teenagers to continue in the traditional high school setting, the fact is, the challenges of home and family life may only serve to impose a greater risk for dropping out of high school. For this reason, the alternative high school option caters to the time schedules of pregnant or parenting teenagers, both male and female, providing for an opportunity to complete high school while fulfilling their responsibility with teen pregnancy.
Because teen pregnancy and teen parenting is often correlated with a lower socio-economic status for your teenager, it is important that the educational curriculum not only support the traditional high school academics, but also support the not-so-traditional education needed to support the emotional and psychological aspects of early childbearing. Often, teens who become parents while in high school feel as if they are unable to achieve the same educational and professional goals of their non-parent peers. With the right educational setting, however, these fears and false perceptions can be negated, thereby providing for a greater opportunity to improve the long term socio-economic status for your teenager.
If the public school system in which you reside does not offer alternative educational programs for your teenager, you may want to consider an alternative educational program in a proximate location. For example, many young pregnant women, and parenting boys and girls, are attending public schools in school districts within their state, with funding supported by the state educational programs. The key to making this transition for your teenager lies in the investigation into the options.
Within each state there is a state board that regulates and oversees educational programs, including curriculum and funding from both a state and federal level. By contacting this government agency, you can obtain resource information on the education and academic alternatives offers for teen parents or to those who have become pregnant.
While teen pregnancy is not something, as a parent, that you appreciate occurring in your child’s life, the fact is, teen pregnancy continues to be an epidemic in the United States. When choosing to continue through the pregnancy, it is important, as a parent, to find the educational programs that will cater to your teen’s pregnancy and parenting time schedules and demands, while allowing for continued education. In many cases, leaving the parenting teen in the traditional academic setting only results in an increase in high school drop-out rate and, ultimately, will place your teen into a risk for living in a lower socio-economic status.
