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It comes back to parenting once more

There always will be teen-age pregnancies and teen-age births.

But should Americans -- of all ages -- be content to watch the numbers of them continue to increase? Should people in Seneca County ignore a rise in percentage of the births to teens among the county's total from 12.8 percent in the 1980s to 16.3 so far in the '90s? And this while teenagers have become a smaller percentage of the population?

The answers to those questions should be no.

But government and community programs could solve only a small part of the problem.

For the numbers to be reduced significantly, parents -- as close to all of them as possible -- would need to take action in two areas. Both of them often are pointed out by teens themselves. Both also require a larger investment of parental time than is found in many homes today. And both of them would help solve many other problems. They are:

• Parents must provide supervision and discipline, and teach their children what is right and what is wrong. Young people want limits ... fair ones. They also want to see their parents live by rules that aren't necessarily the same as theirs, but that are based on the same moral code.
• Parents must know what is going on in the lives of their children. They must listen to them. They should know with whom they spend their time and what they watch on TV. And to do this they may have to reduce the time for their own pursuits.

The above is no formula for success. There are no guarantees in parenting.

But approaching it with disinterest leaves children with no foundation upon which to make good decisions. In many cases it leaves youngsters feeling their is no good reason to try to make good decisions.

Children don't need to be guided to NOT have children. They need guidance to get them to the point in life at which they can provide properly -- including parenting -- for the children they have.

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