Alternative Schools

As I mentioned yesterday, some particular types of employees are required to report underage sex as defined by their state. Here is one example case from today's news. Stephanie, 17, is five months pregnant with her third child. When the special school she attends, Riverview Academy, discovered that she was pregnant, the child's father (a 19 year old) "was charged with misdemeanor sexual intercourse with a child and could face up to nine months in jail, if convicted."

If your pregnant daughter is at-risk for not finishing her high school education because of pregnancy or other issues, see if there is a special school that can help her by focusing on job-related skills and/or providing extra tutoring.

Here are just a few alternative schools...do you know of one in your area? Leave us a comment with its name or url!

• Colorado's Finest A.H.S., Englewood (Colorado)
• Project CDA, Coeur d'Alene (Idaho)
• Dugan A.H.S., Chicago (Illinois)
• District 7 A.H.S., Edwardsville (Illinois)
• Aurora A.H.S., Bloomington (Indiana)
• Central A.H.S., Dubuque (Iowa)
• Washburn Rural A.H.S., Topeka (Kansas)
• Bryant A.H.S., Alexandria (Virginia)
• Mountain View A.H.S., Centreville (Virginia)
• Pimmitt Hills A.H.S., Falls Church (Virginia)
• The Nova Project, Seattle (Washington)
• Middleton A.S.H, Middleton (Wisconsin)

To find a school in your area, either call your public school district or go to your favoriate search engine and search for 'alternative high school' and the name of your state.

Should we press charges?

There has been much gossip and discussion around the pregnancy of 16-year old Jamie Lynn Spears since her boyfriend is several years older. Some pundits are saying that the boy should be charged with Statutory Rape. Regardless of your opinion on the Spears' matter, the law is different in every state and there is no single definition of the age of consent for sexual activity. Read this 2003 overview of state laws, from which the following quote is extracted:

Most states do not refer specifically to statutory rape; instead they use designations such as sexual assault and sexual abuse to identify prohibited activity. Regardless of the designation, these crimes are based on the premise that until a person reaches a certain age, he is legally incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse. Thus, instead of including force as a criminal element, theses crimes make it illegal for anyone to engage in sexual intercourse with anyone below a certain age, other than his spouse.

Under some very particular conditions, health care workers, social workers, and others are required to report underage sexual activity as child abuse. Read this 2004 Report which also details the conditions that must be met for an incident to be legally considered statuatory rape (see in particular, the state-by-state summary).

If your situation fits the requirements for your state, then pray, seek counsel (legal counsel and mental/spiritual health counseling), and spend a lot of time talking with your daughter before taking the serious step of pressing charges. Your situation may or may not warrant criminal charges against the father of your daughter's baby, so consider any action with the help of professionals who understand all the nuances. Certainly if your daughter is pregnant because of a coersive, abusive and/or illegal situation, get her the counseling she needs and investigate whether any steps need to be taken to increase her physical safety.

The Grief Cycle, continued

Eventually your journey through the grief cycle takes you to the phase of acceptance. This is where you stop trying to change your daughter, where you release her into God's hands. Only Jesus can be her savior, through the work of the Holy Spirit, and we have to get out of His way. Journal your list of fears, hopes, and dreams about your daughter, her life, and your grandchild. Then pray through the list, offering each item to God and purposefully leaving them at the Cross. Ask God for the courage and strength to keep your hands off these items, allowing God to work. Ask God to increase your capacity to trust Him. Ask God to increase your faith in His timing. You probably will not be perfect at this process of release and trust! You may find that you have re-engaged in the turmoil and need to start a fresh cycle of journaling and prayer. God knows that you are not perfect yet calls you to keep working the journey. So don't give up when you face discouragement.

Acceptance and release are not the same as abandonment and neglect, so don't swing to the opposite end of the spectrum and simply wash your hands of your daughter. Pray for God to show you what actions you should take. Pray for wisdom about how to distinguish tough love from abandonment and neglect. Seek Godly counsel, and the support of mature Christians. Your daughter is a valuable and unique creation by God, with inherant value. God chose you to be her parent. Your relationship with your daughter and her child, your grandchild, will change over your whole life, just as it has to date as your daughter grew from infant to young adult. You can only control your response to her. You have never been able to control her response to you. She may decide to abandon you for a time, like the prodigal son. She may decide to walk a tough road before returning to God's path for her life. Nothing comes as a surprise to God...He knows us better than we know ourselves because He created us and loved us even while we were yet sinners.

God promises in Romans 8:28 that "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." So we know that God is able and willing to take these painful experiences and use them to benefit us. Pray for patience while you wait to see how God will work in your lives. God wants to heal us and help us to become more like Him. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." (NIV) It may be that in the future, God will ask you to help other parents through a similar situation by sharing your experiences and God's comfort. What comfort have you received from God recently? Share with us in the comments.

The Grief Cycle

Yes! The grief cycle applies to YOU, the parent of a single daughter who is pregnant! The grief cycle most likely also applies to your daughter. You are both facing real and perceived losses. Journal about the things you feel loss about in this situation. Have your daughter do the same, and talk about your lists together.

When you heard the news that your daughter was pregnant, you may have felt shock and pain. These are the beginning stages of the grief cycle. We each experience grief differently, but the phases of the cycle apply to us all. We each need to study how we feel and act during painful events so that we can learn to respond instead of react.

When discovering that their daughter is pregnant, some parents feel a strange sense that their daughter has died. The realities of her situation do not mesh up to their mental picture of their daughter, and they struggle to reconcile these two perceived versions of their daughter. Perhaps the mental image of their daughter seems dead as compared to the physical loved one in front of them. Sometimes parents feel that they no longer know who their daughter is.

Parents may also feel that the hopes and dreams they had for their daughter have died because she is pregnant. Hopefully you can come to see that almost all the hopes and dreams you had for your daughter can still be achieved after the detour of pregnancy. Your daughter's pregnancy is not the end of the world, and your daughter has not physically died, nor has your grandchild that she is carrying.

The grief cycle starts with denial or disbelief, and these reactions can be very strong. It is likely that your daughter has already dealt with denial to some degree and had to overcome it in order to admit to herself and to you that she is indeed pregnant. So your daughter may be slightly ahead of you in her own grief cycle. Do not give in to the temptation to ignore or minimize the situation. You must process your feelings so that you can move forward...there are many decisions to think and pray about! Denial of your daughter's pregnancy will not make the situation go away. Abortion sometimes seems like a way to deny that your daughter is pregnant. However, your daughter is now a mother, you are now a grandparent, and the question is will she be the mother of a dead child and you the grandparent of a dead grandchild, or of a living one?

The next phases of the grief cycle are anger, depression, and bargaining. These too can be very strong emotions. You may feel anger at your daughter, at the father of your grandchild, at your spouse, at your family, yourself, and the world in general. Depression has been defined by some as "anger turned inward over a period of time". Pay attention to your thoughts and physical feelings. Watch for symptoms of depression in yourself, your family, and your pregnant daughter. Watch for symptoms of prolonged anger (headaches, stomach pain, heart problems, etc.) in yourself, your family, and your daughter. Seek the help that you and your family need. Examine yourself to see if you are avoiding or suppressing the pain you feel... it usually does not go away but will simply surface in other aspects of your life. Chapter 1 "Hearing the Shocking News" in our book "How To Survive Your Teen's Pregnancy" talks more about the grief cycle and offers exercises to help you examine your emotions.

Share with us by commenting: where do you think you are in the grief cycle right now?

Which sin is worse?

As a parent, you've probably assigned different consequences to your children when they do something wrong. For example, when your child was younger you may have assigned a "time out" for one kind of offense and a removal of privleges for a more serious offense. As your child has grown up, you may have taken away the car keys for one type of offense, etc.

We tend to think that a more "serious" error requires a more serious consequence. And this is certainly true in some senses. In a court of law, we don't want to sentence a murderer to only 30 days in jail and we don't want to sentence a spelling test cheater to a death sentence. In God's Law (as written in the Old Testament) there were also different consequences for different sins, and different sacrifices to atone for those sins.

But in the big picture, all sins regardless of "seriousness" separate us from our Holy God who cannot tolerate any level of unholiness at all. To be reconciled to God, Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins. As Christians, we can receive forgivness of our sins and yet God does not also remove the Earthly consequences of our actions. If we lie, we can receive forgiveness from God but usually still have to set the situation right and receive our consequences. So while consequences vary, we need to remember that all sin is equal in God's eyes. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross -- we are all equally sinful and separated from God. So if your daughter sinned sexually, that sin is the same in God's eyes as any time that your daughter has gossiped.

Every one of us is a sinner, and God does not accept our behaviors even while He loves us and is constantly calling us to be more like Him. Both you and your daughter may have trouble mentally separating her behaviors from who she is as a person. So in your discussions, focus on reaffirming her (not her behavior) and telling her you love her (not her behavior). Talk to your daughter about repentence and pray with her about forgiveness. Then practice that forgiveness in your relationship.

Finding Support for Your Family

You probably feel pretty isolated when trying to cope with the news of your single daughter's pregnancy. The statistics show that you are not alone, but it is also the case that you and your family need special support during this challenge! You should not try to deal with this situation entirely on your own even though you may fear "airing the family's dirty laundry". It may be embarassing to admit you need help, but pregnancy outside of marriage is a crisis: there are changes to life no matter what course is chosen, and those changes will require new coping strategies.

Sit down and think about who your support circle is. List family, fellow church members, and friends who are trustworthy and wise. God created family to support each other. Likewise, God urges us to be active in a local church for spiritual, emotional and physical support. The body of Christ is called to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. And yet we are still fallen humans, so choose your initial support group with prayer and thought. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom about who to talk to and where to find help.

Find a local ministry that understands the issues and decisions involved in pregnancy. Call OptionLine (800-395-HELP, open 24/7) to see if there is a pregnancy resource center near you, or to talk to a phone counselor. OptionLine can also be reached via email and instant messenger, and can talk to both you and your daughter. You may also be able to find counseling help for your other children as they deal with your daughter's pregnancy.

Take the time to educate yourself and your family about the issues and decisions involved in your daughter's pregnancy. Obviously we recommend our book "How To Survive Your Teen's Pregnancy: Practical Advice for the Parents of a Christian Pregnant Single", and there are other books and resources out there too. It is important to understand that there is rarely a single cause that led your daughter into sexual activity outside marriage, which led to her pregnancy. So don't place all the 'blame' on any particular person or thing. Talk to your daughter to brainstorm all the actions and decisions that contributed to her situation.

Find other parents to talk to. You may know another family at church who has had a pregnant daughter in the past. Call them and ask to meet for coffee to hear their experiences. You will likely find it very comforting to hear the story of other parents who have gone through similar struggles as you are now facing. Again, don't allow this challenge to isolate you from help when you need it most. Pray for God to bring you wise and trustworthy counsel, and ask God to give you wisdom. James 1:5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

What did I do wrong?

If those tapes in your head are telling you that you're a bad parent, a failure, please know that you're not the only one who feels that way. Many Christian parents start to wonder what they did wrong in raising their Christian daughter that she would be sexually active and pregnant outside of marriage. Introspection can be healthy and it can also be unhealthy.

Healthy introspection can help you identify parenting choices that didn't turn out like you intended, so that you can take steps to make better parenting choices as you move forward.

Unhealthy introspection gets you stuck in the past, unable to move forward, focusing only on regrets and on blaming yourself and/or your spouse. You are not alone in these feelings, but remind yourself constantly that no parent is perfect just as no child is perfect. Your children make mistakes, just as you have made mistakes. 1 John 1:8 says, "If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth." (NLT) Every human on the planet today makes mistakes.

As you pray, ask the Lord to show you if there is anything you've done for which you need to ask your child for forgiveness. Let the Holy Spirit search you and lead you to any revelations, rather than you micro-examining your memories. Use Psalm 139:23-24 in your prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (NIV) God promises that when you seek Him, you will find Him. Matthew 7:7-8 says, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." (ASV) As God reveals shortcomings to you, confess them and embrace His forgivness, for 1 John 1:9 promises, "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong." (NLT)

When parents are dwelling on their pain, they often accuse each other of contributing to the problem. Actively work on talking to each other without accusations. In addition, don't give your spouse the 'silent treatment'...this is a time where you both need to share your thoughts and feelings and find support in each other. This is a time for your marriage to come together, not to push each other away. Pray outloud with each other. Share your journal entries. Read chapters from "How To Survive Your Teen's Pregnancy" outloud together and discuss them. Work on these exercises from Marriage Enrichment, called "Knee to Knee - Dealing with Grief". Your daughter's pregnancy is a crisis that triggers a grief cycle for all involved, and normal grief feels abnormal. So take the time to talk. Don't try to cope with this alone.