Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Teen Pregnancy and It's Effects

Author: Peter sams


Teen pregnancies are still the norm in much of the developing world. Each child born to a young girl normally is considered a blessing.
Despite the fact that the teen birth rate is slowly falling, there are still an estimated one million teen pregnancies in the United States alone. About 85% of these pregnancies are unplanned, which in any population can increase the risk for problems. The biggest risk for teen mothers is delaying prenatal care or worse, 7.2% received no care at all.

The reason for lack of prenatal care is usually delayed pregnancy testing, denial or even fear of telling others about the pregnancy. Most states have a health department or University clinic where prenatal care is free or low cost and patient confidentiality is very important, meaning no one can tell the teen mother's family.
Teenage mothers are less likely to gain adequate weight during their pregnancy, leading to Low Birth weight which is associated with infant and childhood disorders and a high rate of infant mortality. Low-birth weight babies are more likely to have organs that are not fully developed, which can result in complications such as bleeding in the brain, respiratory distress syndrome, and intestinal problems.
Children born to teenage mothers are less likely to receive proper nutrition, health care, and cognitive and social stimulation. As a result, they may have an underdeveloped intellect and attain lower academic achievement.

Effects

Effects of teen pregnancies on the children involved. These children are far more likely to grow up in poverty, to have more health problems, to suffer from higher rates of abuse and neglect, to fail in school, to become teen mothers, to commit delinquent acts and adult crimes, and to incur failed adult marriages and other relationships.

The burdens of early childbearing on disadvantaged teens are undeniable. Trying to untangle the factors which contribute to teenage pregnancy from its effects, however, leads to a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" dilemma. Educational failure, poverty, unemployment and low self-esteem are understood to be negative outcomes of early childbearing. These circumstances also contribute to the likelihood of teen pregnancy.

In general, teen mothers have much lower levels of educational attainment than other women, which severely limit their career options and sharply increase their likelihood of economic dependency. Only 70% of teen mothers complete high school or earn a GED, and far fewer
Risk Factors. Although it is not inevitable, some life circumstances place girls at higher risk of becoming teen mothers. These include poverty, poor school performance, growing up in a single parent household, having a mother who was an adolescent mother, or having a sister who has become pregnant.

Teenage pregnancies have become a public health issue because of their observed negative effects on perinatal outcomes and long-term morbidity. The association of young maternal age and long-term morbidity is usually confounded, however, by the high prevalence of poverty, low level of education, and single marital status among teenage mothers.

Children of teenage mothers have significantly higher odds of placement in certain special education classes and significantly higher occurrence of milder education problems, but when maternal education, marital status, poverty level, and race are controlled, the detrimental effects disappear and even some protective effects are observed.



Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_479589_17.html

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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Why is Planning Important?

Author: Jeff Willis

One of the most important aspect of developing strong ways of winning is the planning.

Noted author Mark Twain hit it on the head when he said, "The Secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable ones – then starting on the first one."


Why is Planning Important?

• Planning is leveraged time. 20 minutes of planning per day can improve your productivity immensely.
Affording yourself time to plan will pay off in the future. You'll make sure that you are staying on track with your goals and you can ensure that you become more task oriented.
By simply taking 10-20 minutes to go through what your objectives or outcomes are, you will be more likely to achieve them and not get sidetracked which is quite easy to do especially when working online.

• Planning provides the framework for informed decision making.
By planning what you are going to do you will be establishing a framework and will be able to tick off items from your "to do" list as you go along. This is an extremely effective way to manage any tasks that you have.

• Planning reduces crisis management.
If you plan effectively there is less likelihood of any critical issues coming up. However, it is important to be prepared for unforeseen situations occurring and be prepared to sit back and plan again around any issues.

• Planning allows focus and personal energy direction.
As you can appreciate, by establishing a focus through planning you will be able to channel your energy positively into reaching an outcome. Having a course of direction will assist you in accomplishing your tasks in a more timely and efficient manner.

• Planning helps to eliminate:
• A) bad habits;
• B) Fear of failure.
If you stick to a plan you are more likely to break some bad habits you might have (ie surfing around the net without really accomplishing anything). By establishing a plan and sticking to it you are less likely to fail.

• Planning allows you to set priorities and focus on what is important.
Even within your plan you can priorities your tasks so that items you think are more important than others can be action-ed accordingly. You need to discover what is important to you and sometimes go through a few boring tasks in order to get to the exciting end result.

Effective planning will have a HUGE impact on breaking bad habits you might have and should lead to successful task management.

Give it a go for the next week whenever you are getting ready to make a sales presentation or if you are online working on a website. Write out what you want your objectives and outcomes to be. Get a "to do" list happening!

To Your Success!
Jeff Willis

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_32151_36.html

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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Don't Forget Your Ticket to Work

Author: Aaron Rifkind

Thousands of Americans are deemed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to be disabled every year and accordingly receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI), or both. The misconception among the many who receive Social Security disability benefits is that after receiving those benefits they have to stop working. The common fear is that working will cause them to lose their Social Security disability benefits. While it is true that in some circumstances working can cause the SSA to stop giving out disability benefits, most people that I have talked to have never heard of the government sponsored Ticket to Work Program.

The Ticket to Work Program was a response by the government to all of the barriers that were originally created to stop people with disabilities from working. Ticket to Work was created as part of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999. The goal of Ticket to Work according to SSA was to increase opportunities and choices for Social Security disability beneficiaries to obtain employment, vocational rehabilitation, and other support services from public and private providers, employers, and other organizations.

Ticket to Work is voluntary and those who wish to participate in the program can apply with SSA. After completing the application, SSA will administer a ticket to the individual which looks similar to a ticket for a sporting event. The ticket includes the issue date, ticket number, and person's claim number. Once you have your ticket, you can then proceed to the nearest State vocational rehabilitation agency or Employment Network (EN) for services. Once the ticket is handed to either a State vocational rehabilitation agency or an EN, they can offer you services to help you go back to work. Hopefully, through the help of either service you will be able to receive a meaningful and fulfilling employment position. It is worth noting that an individual can continue to receive healthcare benefits even though he or she has obtained employment. What is also great about Ticket to Work is that even if you begin your job and find yourself unable to complete the necessary daily tasks, you can immediately stop working and receive an expedited reinstatement of benefits.

If an individual chooses to participate in Ticket to Work it is important to know that you will NOT automatically lose your disability benefits. There are special rules in place called "work incentives" that allow the individual to keep cash benefits and Medicaid or Medicare while you test your ability to work. For people receiving SSDI benefits, the trial period is an accumulated nine month of services within a 60-month period. In 2009, your work constitutes services if you earn more than $700 a month. For those receiving SSI benefits, your work may affect the amount you receive but SSA counts less than half of your earnings when they compute your check. If you want to see how Ticket to Work would affect your individual benefits, you should contact a Work Incentives Planning and Assistance (WIPA) Program prior to making any final arrangements with a State vocational rehabilitation agency or EN.

Many disabled individuals receiving Social Security disability benefits are under the impression that it is good not to work. They think that it is bad to work because if they did, SSA would immediately terminate their benefits. This misconception has caused numerous disabled individuals to shy away from pursuing their dreams in the workforce. For those individuals, Ticket to Work is a wonderful untapped resource. Ticket to Work can serve not only as a great resource, but as a tool to help people obtain both meaningful and fulfilling employment.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_1110367_18.html

About the Author: Aaron Rifkind is a writer and claimants representative for Social Security Defenders, who enjoys offering informational resources to the public. For more information on Social Security disability benefits, feel free to contact Social Security Defenders http://socialsecuritydefenders.com or visit Social Security Blog at http://socialsecuritydefenders.blogspot.com/

http://socialsecuritydefenders.blogspot.com

Monday, October 4, 2010

How Do You Know If Someone Has a Passive Aggressive Behaviour?

Author: Nora Femenia

This may come as a surprise to you, but Passive Aggressive behavior is pervasive. Given the fact that open aggression in interpersonal relations is now seen as a despicable fact, punished by law, more and more of men's aggression goes underground. As women claimed more of their own power, some of the men around began to feel unsettled by the role change. Even when they are some women which behave in this way, it is prevalent in men, who use it to protect themselves from the aspects of the relationship they can't deal with. At a wider level, this response has far reaching consequences on family and work life.

Let's look carefully at the sources of your unhappiness, to know if the difficulties are caused by PA behavior that you can neither anticipate nor manage well.

You fall in love and it looks like you will have a companion, someone to share wonderful moments together when you begin perceiving that your companion is always upset, and making you the responsible party of all differences. When something happens, you don't have a conversation where both sides examine what happened and learn from it, taking responsibility for each one's behavior. No, you have a temper tantrum and a guilt inducing session, so strong that you can end up thinking that you are so stupid, so unable to make him/her happy, that you end up feeling as a miserable wreck, or worse.

If you are dealing with passive aggressive people without realizing what is going on, it can be crazy making. You feel dismissed, shut down, ignored but in a subtle enough way that you don't know how to process and react. Your judging brain is being slowly impaired.and diminished by this constant negative environment. You can be accommodating, pleasant and patient, but the situation does not improve; at some point, you explode. Over time, this can turn into a vicious cycle: passive aggressive behavior begets anger and finger-pointing, which in turn begets more passive-aggressive behavior. You find yourself screaming, slamming doors and feeling out of control, which was not part of your behavior before.

Ask yourself these questions:

* Does your partner become angry with you about things over which you have no control? Is he blaming and punishing you for things that happen to him/her that you had no part in?

* Is your partner frequently sullen, depressed and angry about small life circumstances, but ignore the big problems, thus never facing them?

* Do you receive complaints about you don't appreciating him/her enough, not being able to appreciate even when you do more than ever to please this person?

* Is he expressing a deep idea of being cursed by life, being left behind by others who are responsible for all his problems? Does she ever take any responsibility for what happens to her?

* Is your partner describing a world that is his own creation, impervious to whatever you can say to change that? If you offer a different, more positive construct of the world, of your common friends, family and work acquaintances, is it rejected as "fabrications" because what this person sees is the only "truth"?

OK, now, be brave: Does the person you are dealing with displays at least three of the above behaviors? If the answer is YES then you are probably dealing with a passive-aggressive person who never learned how to be in an equal, mature relationship and is reproducing unresolved personal pain from childhood into this new and presumably "more mature" relationship.

If all of this translates later into any kind of abusive behavior, at least you can understand better what happens and how can you regain your integrity and self-respect.

THREE SHORTCUTS TO APPLY IMMEDIATELY:

1.- The main problem with passive aggressive behavior is first how to identify this interaction, because the same mind that needs to observe and evaluate (yours) is being confused by a barrage of mixed rational/emotional contradictory messages.

Then, we need to accept confusion and emotional pain as indicators of being in the presence of a relationship with a passive aggressive (PA) person. Is not that you are a less intelligent person; is that another person is confusing you!

2. - A person who displays PA traits is a person who never learnt how to accept and manage his anger, using twisted behavior to project his responsibility on others ("you made him angry") so blaming others for everything real or imaginary that happens to them. Deeply inside, they are emotionally unavailable and can't allow anybody to get very emotionally close, so displaying PA traits is a way to deflect the intensity of feelings, and recover the security of their inner isolation by backing off from emotional intimacy. DON'T feel rejected at a personal level.

3. - It is not related to YOU! You don't have to be a beauty queen, a very successful manager or a sex bombshell to make him happy: it has nothing to do with what you can offer him. Whatever you are, he is probably NOT relating to who you are, but reacting to his own image of what an intimate partner means for him. Getting to know what happens (you attracted a PA person to be your love relationship) has at least to give you this fact for sure: his reactions have nothing to do with you, because he would react in the same way to any one who threatens to enter into his private world. His fear is not of you, but of intimacy and yielding to emotional compromise with any woman.

UNDERSTANDING the three shortcuts you will be able to regain control of the interaction, know where you are when conflict appears and have more power to decide what is next in your life.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regain the power to be happy in a good relationship, visit now:
http://www.PassiveAggresive.com
Claim Today your copy of "Unfulfilled Promises" And discover how to regain control of your life.

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_35419_35.html

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Saturday, October 2, 2010

Best Car Donation Tips To Save You Money On Your Taxes

Author: Helen Hecker

In the United States it's possible to donate a vehicle (usually a car, but it can be a boat or any other form of transportation) to certain charities, and in return be able to claim a tax deduction on your personal income tax return. A car donation may be accepted on the condition that the vehicle doesn't have to run but should be in towing condition. A charitable car donation may be worth more than a trade-in.

The new rules allow the donor to deduct only the amount the charity receives for the vehicle. Charities usually provide you with a release of liability when they take your vehicle, and after the car sells, they send you a tax-deduction form that explains how much they received for your car. There have been car donors who needed a new vehicle and they ended up buying donated and repaired vehicles.

You may have an old vehicle sitting on your property or on the street that you don't use very often. Make sure you have the title in hand if you call in your donation.

You can usually donate a sad-looking car that's not running, depending on the charity. The donor benefits from the donation by receiving a tax receipt for the highest possible value of the vehicle. It's good to know that when you donate a car, you'll get it off your property within just a couple of days, freeing up space in the garage, in the driveway or even your yard.

Your vehicle has to have all four of the tires inflated in order to be accepted. By donating a car it can eliminate spending money on repairs, advertising fees and the problems or liabilities associated with selling a vehicle. In some cases charitable car donors can still claim fair market value for their used vehicle.

If your automobile, truck, boat, motorcycle, RV or aircraft is no longer of use to you, it can still go a long way toward supporting the charity of your choice. Make sure to fill out the forms the charity representative gives you and have them ready for the driver when he comes to pick up the car. No need to pay for advertising, no loss of privacy and possible security risk, and no need to pay for vehicle registration, insurance, and repairs to keep your car in running condition while you wait for a buyer.

Also, if your car is running, consider dropping it off with the charity yourself to save the organization from paying for towing costs. For states that require smog certificates or safety inspection certificates, you can donate your vehicle without these documents. And some cars may not qualify for the tax exemption because of the condition they're in.

There are a few exceptions in the new tax law regarding the fair market value section, for example, you may base your deduction on the vehicle's fair market value if the charity sells it to a needy individual at a discounted price or if the charity uses the car as part of its mission instead of selling it. Some charities have the capability to repair or perform maintenance and get a donated vehicle ready for sale. A vehicle donation is allowed if you itemize your income tax return.

Whether it's the law in your state or not it's a good idea to protect yourself by having proper insurance coverage on your vehicle until it's donated. One of the exceptions to the new IRS regulations allows donors to still deduct the fair market value of their vehicle, provided the charity materially improves the vehicle.

If you donate a car you can get a tax break and help your community at the same time. Major charity car donation programs include: Kidney Foundation Car Donation Program, Target and Goodwill Industries. Whatever the case, your car donation, like any charitable donation, will get you a good tax deduction, will go to help someone in need and it'll make you feel good that you were able to help in some way.

For info on choosing the best charity car donation, car donation program, used or charitable car donation online and offline go to http://www.Car-Donation-Info.com for tax deduction tips, reviews, and info on all types of car donation

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_222911_19.html

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