Keep an upbeat attitude

if you plan to keep your baby, you will want to do it with support from those who love you. Don't alienate your family - give them time to warm up to the idea. Your parents won't be able to deny a beautiful child once it is here. Appeal to their better nature, and approach them with a plan for your future. Show them that with their help, you can and will take charge of your new life.

Telling your parents is the tricky part

Since my mom delivers babies for a living, there wasn't much chance of hiding it from her for long. Before I could decide how to do it, she had already guessed. I had mentioned to her that I wasn't going to class one evening, and when she asked why I told her that I felt nauseous. She immediately knew. Since I wasn't living with her, she suggested I tell my dad soon. As fate would have it, they ran into each other at the grocery store and she warned him that I had something I needed to confide to him. He more or less guessed it on his own as well.

Dead Trees, Full Throttle, And Child Well-Being

There are at least 6 dead trees on my desk as I gear up for my first blog entry. I am nervous. I am excited. I don't know what to write about so...I will tell you why the dead trees -- I mean, the massive reports -- I have in front of me are distressing. All are from very well regarded groups. All are scholarly, loaded with graphs, bloviating at full throttle with phrases like "priorities for public policy should be based on the following core principles..." ALL talk about the problem of poverty in America, especially child poverty, along with some specific parts of the grim picture, including dropping out of high school.

Desperate? A Parent? Read on...

Over the years, Campaign surveys have offered up two striking and consistent conclusions: (1) teens consistently say that parents most influence their decisions about sex, and (2) parents freely admit that they know--in their souls--that they should talk to their kids about sex, love, relationships and values but that they don't know what to say or when to start the conversation.

Help is on the way.

A new book, Like Whatever: The Insiders Guide to Raising Teens contains a terrific chapter on teens and sex authored by former Campaign family member Karen Troccoli.