The Benefits of Counseling for a Pregnant Teen
It helps to have an objective person guide you through your decision-making process. Sometimes, when we have difficult choices to make, we'd like to avoid the subject. Many times it takes another person to force us to look at the important issues.
There are people specially trained to assist you in making arrangements for your best possible care and to help you prepare for your future. Local crisis pregnancy centers and agencies are available to help you. The services provided through these centers can be received for little or no charge.
At these centers you will find people who care about your well-being and that of your baby. They may be called counselors, advocates or social workers. Your chats with a counselor will provide a way for you to talk through solutions. Out of care and concern, she will give you the opportunity to take a look at your situation and the changes you want to make for a happier future. A counselor can also help you gauge your readiness for parenting. She can give you insight, provide a list of helpful resources and lend you moral support. Just as important, she can serve as a mediator between you and your parents, or between you and your baby's father.
Depending on your needs, assistance can be provided for obtaining financial aid, medical care, prenatal and childbirth education and if necessary housing, maternity clothes and transportation.
It is also advisable that your parents get counseling. There are many excellent reasons why they should talk with an objective professional. A trained counselor can help to resolve negative feelings like guilt, anger, denial and frustration. She can also help them to be honest with you in terms of what you can and cannot expect from them.
Most parents are too close to the problem to be objective. Counseling can provide your mother and father with the tools to "back off" and allow you to come to your own decision. A trained professional could steer them toward letting go of some of the responsibility. She could assist your parents toward being alert to your needs, yet also help establish the fact that they are not responsible for the choice you make concerning the baby.
It may be hard for your parents to cope with their daughter's growing up so quickly. If your mom has protected and sheltered you all her life, it's going to be pretty hard for her to suddenly take off on a shopping trip with you to buy maternity clothes. But counseling can help her and your father work through the upset, confused feelings they may experience.
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Other Things to Consider
Related Topics
Relationships: Blended Families, Parents and Adult Children
Transitions: Preparing for Adolescence, Empty Nest
