Lauren 0:00

What do you do if a student you're working with says they're pregnant? Isn't this the most common job interview question high school counselors get, especially when it comes from administrators asking them questions. I feel like it's always that go to scenario question that they want to see you answer.

Lauren 0:17

And if you've been in this job for any length of time, it's probably not, honestly too tough of one to answer. You know, as high school counselors, you've seen it all. You've heard it all. Nothing can surprise you anymore. Admin deal with sensitive issues too. So I'm not really sure why it always just feels like that classic, what would you do question for high school counselors in an interview?

Lauren 0:39

Okay, but I'm coming out of the gate swinging with this one. Not just what would you do if one of your students told you they were pregnant, but how do you support them well in their journey of being a teen parent? So let's talk about some ideas for supporting teen parents in this week's high school counseling conversations episode.

Lauren 1:02

You got into this profession to make a difference in your students' lives, but you're spread thin by all the things that keep getting added to your to do list. I can't create more hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor clique where you'll finally catch your breath.

Lauren 1:16

Come with me as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that'll help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your students. I'm Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype girl here to help you energize your school counseling program and remind you of how much you love your job.

Lauren 1:34

It's obvious that we as high school counselors want to support all of our students by equipping them with the skills and the resources, and I'm talking both physical and emotional resources that they need to be successful humans. That's why you show up every day at your job. I know that about you.

Lauren 1:51

Teen pregnancy as a whole doesn't discriminate. Teenagers, and when I say teenagers, for the sake of this episode, that means the CDC is saying that that's ages 15 to 19. Surprising. I know I kind of thought that that would be at like age 18, but for the CDC purposes, when I say teenagers, that's what I'm talking about, because I'm going to give you some research on the front end here.

Lauren 2:13

So teenagers have been getting pregnant since forever, though we've seen the birth rate decline 78% since 1991. Most recently, the teen birth rate in the United States decreased 3% from 2021 reaching a record low for this age group. The 2022 rates declined for both younger so like 15 to 17 group and older ages 18 to 19, in those groups of teenagers. The teen birth rate has declined every year from 1991 except for two years, 2006 and 2007.

Lauren 2:45

And they can't attribute that overall decline to one thing in particular. But this is all coming from the CDC. They say that they think their evidence points to more teens abstaining from sexual activity and more sexually active teens using birth control. Also, according to the CDC, the US teen birth rate is higher than in many other high income countries.

Lauren 3:06

I'll link national CDC data in the show notes, but a quick Google search can also give you details for your state. It'll break down the national teen birth rates down by state, so you can get as granular as you want with this teen sector. You can also look at race and ethnicity as well.

Lauren 3:24

The most recent CDC data on teen birth rates comes from 2022 but when you go to the link that I'll put in the show notes, you can see and you can sort those rates by state, from high to low, if you want. You can really satiate a lot of curiosity here on their website, they have so much data.

Lauren 3:41

Their data shows the number of births per 1000 females ages 15 to 19. So if you click into that state, you can see other birth data rates and stats on this map, you can see how your state compares to other states, if you're curious about that too. For the podcast sake, the state with the highest teen birth rate is Mississippi, coming in at 26.4 birth per 1000 females. The state with the lowest teen birth rate is New Hampshire, and that's at 4.6 births per 1000 females.

Lauren 4:12

The other health data points that I kind of mentioned that you can sort through on there for your state include things like infant mortality rate, life expectancy rate, drug overdose rate, homicide rate and more. I know really light stuff, right? If you need another state specific data point, you can always dig into DHEC stats for your state too.

Lauren 4:32

Now I know that was, like, heavy on the stats. I didn't give you a warning. I just dove right in with the heavy stats there. We're gonna get more into, like, the meat of the episode here, but I just wanted to lay the land a little bit with some of those stats, so you know what we're talking about.

Lauren 4:47

But again, I know you work in a school, so this is not like a big surprise to you that you're working with teenagers who are pregnant and having children. There seems to be one researcher who's done a lot of writing on this topic, so I explored a lot of what he had written. The last name is Hamilton, and in case you're wondering, like you're sitting here listening to this, like, is this a health issue? What part of the CDC or DHEC statistics like matter to me?

Lauren 5:11

This author that I mentioned Hamilton says teen childbearing is, in fact, a matter of public health concern due to the elevated risks for mothers and their infants and the social and economic costs in terms of health care, child welfare and the potential loss of the mother's educational and occupational opportunities. And that came right from one of Hamilton's research articles. And I think that as I list out all those things, you see them in a school.

Lauren 5:36

Like a personal interjection here. I worked in a large district. I'm talking 15 high schools, and there were pregnant teenagers in all of these schools, whether community members wanted to believe that or acknowledge that or not. I want to make us all aware that there are some risk factors that put teens at a higher risk of teen pregnancies, like being in the foster care system or high levels of unemployment for the family, low education, low income, these have all been associated with higher teen birth rates.

Lauren 6:06

Again, this is not a one size fits all thing, but that's what research shows. Every situation does not fit into a box in terms of what students you're serving that fit into the pregnant or parenting teen demographic. But I just wanted to say that the point of this episode is to shine a light on a group of students who could use some extra support.

Lauren 6:25

If we can support our parenting and pregnant students by putting some interventions, some intentional interventions in place around them, we can support all of our students better to reach their goals. So now that I've laid some groundwork for who these students might be, or at least acknowledging that they exist. Let's talk about how to support them specifically in three areas. I've divided it up into their relationships, their knowledge and their motivation.

Lauren 6:50

I want to give you some ideas of some resources that maybe you could implement, and some sample scripts or some questions you could ask your parenting or pregnant students in these categories, their relationships, their knowledge and their motivation. Like I just said.

Lauren 7:04

First up: relationships. Healthy relationships is a great topic to lean into under this umbrella. In individual counseling or small group or Lunch and Learn type settings, you can have some really good conversations about healthy relationships here, and this just doesn't have to be simply romantic relationships. Talk to your students about their relationships with their family, their peers.

Lauren 7:24

Of course, romantic interest can be a part of that conversation too. But talking about co parenting, co workers, teachers, there are so many different relationships in their sphere, they might not even be thinking about which ones are healthy, which ones are not healthy, who they are in relationship with.

Lauren 7:40

So some great, simple intro questions to open the door to some of these conversations could be, who is a trusted adult that you have a healthy relationship with? What family or extended family do you have? Who you'd call support people. Maybe you could ask them to draw those or list those. How are you managing your friendships, relationships, activities and work?

Lauren 8:00

My idea here is that this can help you flow from a conversation about relationships into other areas that they may need to have some support, like the knowledge and the resources that we'll talk about here in a second. What barriers do you think you'll experience once you have the baby, if they're pregnant right now or now that you have a baby, what barriers do you think you're gonna have? What supports do we need to put in place to overcome these?

Lauren 8:24

Here's an important one, I think. Who will my friends be? It's important to acknowledge that relationships can shift after having a baby, no matter what age you are. Friends in different seasons may not understand the hardships that come with having a little one in tow now. It's important to consider how friendships with peers, especially among teenagers, may change for your high school students who are having babies.

Lauren 8:45

Let's move into knowledge. This is a solid place to figure out what physical needs your students have. Is there a social worker involved with these students in addition to you? In my district, this is a huge piece of what the high school social workers do. Their role is a lot of working with parenting and pregnant teens, and I say that language that's like the language we use in our area to identify these students, parenting and pregnant.

Lauren 9:08

That may sound or look different in your area. I'd be curious if it does. DM and tell me what language you use for the student population. I'd love to hear it! Some questions we can ask to see if students are developing their knowledge around their situation, including resources that are needed, might be something like, what services or community resources do we need to connect you with?

Lauren 9:28

And you know they might not know what they don't know. So have resources ready to go for them, whether that's a list or a folder or some websites that they can go to, a phone number they can call, I bet they don't know what they need.

Lauren 9:41

Have you arranged for any health screenings or doctor's appointments yet? This is a big role of our social workers making sure students are getting to those appointments and making and keeping those appointments. But think about it like it's hard for a high schooler who's not pregnant themselves or caring for another human to make and keep a doctor's appointment.

Lauren 9:59

Those are soft skills that we're developing with our students who don't have these extra responsibilities even, and now add in the stress or the physical changes going on, the mental changes with having a baby in tow, maybe they can't get to those health screenings or doctor's appointments, and we need to be having those conversations.

Consider resources for child care, food stamps, graduation plans, diapers, formula, car seats, safe, housing, transportation. Because things may look one way now, but it's important to consider how, if any of that will change when a baby is added to the picture.

For example, where will their baby go during the school day as they continue to work towards their graduation requirements? If they ride the bus to school, but the baby needs to go somewhere else during the day? How are they going to arrange for that to happen?

Obviously, every student situation will be different, and you're not responsible to meet every single one of their physical needs, but you as a counselor, are way more connected to those community resources that are out there. If you don't already have a list of these things or have a social worker who's getting that together for you, put this together for your school, for your students, for your area, that wouldn't be a bad thing. I promise you'll use it.

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Lastly, let's talk to our students about motivation. I found that students with new babies can go either way. They can get super motivated on their own because now they have this little one to work for and care for, or on the other end, they can get super overwhelmed and shut down.

It's a lot, even for me, as a middle aged mom who is connected to resources. Add in all of the postpartum overwhelm and the pressure of potentially not having the right resources at your fingertips, and of course, it would be really hard to stay motivated when you feel like you're drowning. Your students who are under these circumstances may not see a positive future for themselves.

If they do, maybe they don't have the relational support or the knowledge on how to get there, make it happen, achieve those goals. This is such a sweet part of being a counselor. Anytime you work with a disadvantaged student, and you see them come out on the other side because of the way that you've helped them through heavy relationships, or you've met them in their lack of resources, or you've pushed them to find the motivation they need, you know how worth it it is.

If we can help students feel confident and competent in their skills, including soft skills, we can present them with a hope for their future. I mean, we are trying to do this for all of our students anyways, I know. But when you throw in some really hard stuff, like raising a baby on top of whatever else they already had going on in their lives to begin with, you know that we need to be talking about motivation for their future.

I'd be curious to hear how your districts support your pregnant and parenting teens in their academic endeavors to keep them motivated to reach graduation. In my area, before I worked at the school, this is how they did it. When a student became pregnant, they left the school to finish somewhere else. I don't think this was a social thing to shun them, though. I'm sure it did end up being like that, but it was more of an alternate setting to help focus on the student and their baby to get them to graduation.

Now, don't quote me on these numbers, but a long time ago, that graduation rate was really low for that population of students, when they left this regular school building, it was something like 50% of them graduated. Then they changed the model. So this is when I was there, like I never experienced it any different than this. And the students stayed in the regular learning environment while they had the baby, then they went on homebound, and they still had the same supports, like connected, stayed the same.

And the graduation rate increased to something like 85% something wild that made a lot of sense to stay in their original school building. I think this says a lot about the relational support, the stability and the resources that are already established in the familiarity of the school building.

This should also remind us never to underestimate the power of that school community. Schools are safe havens for so many of our students. We aim to support our students like 360 degrees all the way around. We cover so many aspects of support for what they need within the walls of the school.

So just with any student, we can help them find extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, hobbies, places for connection for them, and we might see that we can do that for students who have babies too, help them have those connections so they can see themselves through graduation. When we help them solidify their short and their long term goals through the. Meaningful conversations, explorative activities, I think we can see that our students will show grit and endurance to reach their goals as they continue to try to provide the best lives they can for themselves and their babies.

So what could you ask your students in regards to their motivation? What are your life goals? What kinds of careers do you want to pursue? What career do you see yourself having, and how can I help you get there? And then maybe lastly, will you continue your education? If so, in what form, what sort of degree or certification do you need to get? And then, obviously, walk with them through what that looks like, just like you would any of your other students.

For each of these three areas to consider talking about with your students, relationships, knowledge and motivation. I have resources in my TPT store to support you. I didn't tell you at the start of the episode what my draw to this population, like personally, is for me, before I left my full time role in the high school, I was already involved with volunteering with a group in my community that supports parenting and pregnant moms, and I know there are dads out there too.

We are helping in the schools, but we don't have the resources right now as like a volunteer organization to do that for dads too, but outside the school, it's a lot. I said, out in a big district, there are a lot of students to serve. I'm still connected to the counselors in the schools, so I helped put together a series of lunch and learns to support these students.

Of course, the counselors were on board because the research shows we need to be supporting them with these types of interventions. That's where the classroom lessons bundle in my TPT store comes from. I actually use each of these lessons as a monthly Lunch and Learn for these students.

So each of these lessons comes with a conversation question list specifically for parenting and pregnant teens, in addition to the PowerPoint slides and activities that are already included. I'll link the roadmap for the suggested order I would do them with in the show notes. That's counselorclique.com/classroomroadmap. But I'll also tell them to here too.

Here are some topics that you could cover. If you want to grab the whole bundle or pick and choose. You can find them at that link: goal setting, healthy relationships, communicating, feelings, growth mindset, budgeting (yay for practical!), coping skills, personal health and wellness, stress on the brain and body and life after high school.

Of course, you can just lean into these three big categories without having any like physical resources, and ask them all those questions that I gave you sample scripts for. You could also implement some structured time to help your students connect with adults in the building who are building who are leading these lessons, or connect them with other peers who are going through something similar. I find a lot of value in lunch and learns to be able to do that.

I don't think you'll go wrong. If you're listening to this episode. I know that you care about serving your students and including populations with unique needs like this group, so don't hesitate to reach out or DM me if you have any questions or ideas. I would love to hear how you're serving this population of teen parents in your school already, or how you are going to look to serve them in new and unique ways. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of high school counseling conversations. All the links I talked about today can be found in the show notes and also at counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you listen to your podcast so that you never miss a new episode. Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me a DM at @counselorclique. That, C, l, I, Q, U, E, I'll see you next week.