InfoGuide4Parents.com

I do not consider myself to be a huge environmentalist but, I am proud to say that I saved my allowance to join Greenpeace in the 80s. As an adult, I now realize the importance of having an awareness about our impact on the earth and sharing this with our children.

We may not be able to save our planet from every black cloud, but it is important to be responsible and respectful to the earth on a daily basis.

A farming county of California, Tulare has the second highest teenage pregnancy rate in America. About 18% of white teenagers are living below poverty line with their birth rate being about 50 for every 1,000, which is at the very least, ten times the lowest rate of birth in the nation where teens live over the poverty line.

Now, the people, who have to endure this relentless poverty and teen related pregnancy in the county of Tulare, are the Latino teens. School authorities affirm that it has more than 80% Hispanic students and these teenagers comprise about 70% of adolescent births occurring in the 15-18 year age bracket.

When teens become overloaded with stress and, as is often the case, it is ineffectively managed, it leads to frequent worrying, isolation, acting-out, illness or destructive attempts to cope, such as drug and/or alcohol abuse. When kids perceive a situation as difficult or painful, mental and physical changes take place that prepare them to protect themselves from danger.

This is called the fight, flight, or freeze response. It is characterized by a more rapid pulse, heart palpitations, increased flow of blood to the arms and legs, and/or a piercing sense of dread. However, this same mechanism that turns on this fight or flight response can turn it off as well.

Self-injury, in the psychological sense, is the act of your adolescent deliberately destroying his or her bodily tissue in order to change the way he or she feels emotionally. Unfortunately, this phenomenon has become popular with some adolescents.

The causes and severity of self-mutilation vary. Some forms of it include: Extreme scratching; branding; picking and pulling skin or hair; burning; scraping; cutting; biting; head banging; purposely bruising; the hitting of oneself; and excessive tattooing or body piercing.

Hundreds of thousands of children are physically abused each year by a parent or close relative and thousands die as a result. For the survivors, the emotional trauma persists long after the physical signs have healed.

These emotional or hidden bruises can and should be treated to prevent additional problems later. Early recognition and counseling is important to minimize the long term effects and any further victimization of others.

You should consider treatment for them, particularly if any severely melancholy or sad feelings are present or interfere with their ability to function. This is not a small matter. Some estimate that approximately 3percent of children and adolescents suffer from symptoms of abuse at some point in time.