Social Issues In Adolescence

INTRODUCTION

Emerging sexuality that accompanies adolescence poses fundamental challenges for youths. Adjusting to altered look and functioning of a sexually matured body, knowing how to deal with sexual desires, values and sexual attitudes, experimenting with sexual behaviours and experiences gives a sense of self growth. Adolescent responses to these challenges are profoundly influenced by the social and cultural context in which they live in. Adolescence means the beginning of physical sexual maturation and reproductive capacity. Young people have a need and a right to know their bodies and to be educated and informed about their sexual wellbeing, however, they are facing many barriers of the receiving community and gaining access to the

Adolescents (ages 13-18) report that it is more likely to get information on issues of sexual health of his companions (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2000a). Young people who refuse to participate in sexual activity tend to have friends who are abstainers. They also tend to have strong personal beliefs in self-denial and the perception of the negative reactions of the parents. Young people who are sexually active tend to believe that most of their friends are sexually active as well and that rewards are greater than the costs of sexual

It is appreciated that overall rates of teen sexual activity, pregnancy and maternity are declining, and that they are increasing their rates of contraceptive use. However, it has increased the proportion of young people who have had sexual intercourse at an early age. Further, the use of contraceptive use for the first time users increased and it has fallen afterwards. There is general consensus that the proportion of adolescents who engage in behaviours that put at risk of pregnancy and HIV and other infections (STI) sexually transmitted is still too high. Adolescent health professionals are faced with the dilemma of how to refine programmatic and research efforts to maintain the progress that has been made while reducing those risk behaviours that remain too prevalent. The solution may lie, in part, in bridging the gap between research and programs. For more than 30 years, researchers have studied the antecedents of teenagers' high-risk sexual behaviours, and service providers have designed programs to prevent those behaviours. Their efforts have typically proceeded independently. Spirituality is an significant but often neglected component of the prevention of early sexual behaviour. Spirituality is a process of self-regulation allowing girls to foresee, monitor and constructively deal with each aspect of their daily lives, including controlling their sexual desires The absence of spirituality in