After matric / school-leaving, your teen's 'long walk to freedom' has just begun!

School’s finished – now what?

Even though most teens can’t wait to finish school, many may find themselves at a loose end now that the holidays are over and schools have re-opened – especially if they have decided to take a gap-year but can’t find a job, if they haven’t made study-plans or don’t qualify for college or university.

Understandably parents get frustrated when their teens mooch around the house, watch TV, hang out with their friends and eat. Days become weeks become months and demotivation and depression sets in when their friends find jobs – or when jobs become scarcer and nastier.

Every year, thousands of matriculants leave school and look for work. The current unemployment rate in South Africa is a daunting 27.7%. School-leavers who don’t have experience, skills or teachableness could be facing a bleak and jobless future. 

  

The school curriculum, ambitious teachers and protective parents doesn’t always prepare teens for the harsh realities of the REAL world out there! School-leavers walk a tightrope between school and the unknown, not sure where they’re heading! Until now they've pretty much taken life for granted. Their "long walk to freedom" has just begun!

Top tips for teens:

• Have the courage of your convictions. If you want to travel, go overseas, work on a ship or become a chef, make a plan to follow your dreams
• Take your school-blinkers off and think out of the box. Do things differently – be bold and brave when looking for a job, and be prepared to start in the basement (I started by emptying bed-pans!)
• Read, read, read. Motivational books, stories, articles. Make lists. Plan and stick to these plans
• Be prepared to ask questions. This does not make you stupid – it makes you smart
• Network with people you know already working in the industry you’re interested in
• Start afresh. Turn over a new leaf. Be different to the way you were when you were in school
• Ask older folk (even grandparents) for advice. Ask them: ‘What would you do if you were in my shoes?’

There are gaps in the job market – you just have to show that you’ve got what it takes for the job. Getting a foot in the door means eating humble-pie and doing voluntary work in return for training and a small stipend to cover living costs. Getting into the industry of your choice can begin by sweeping floors, filing or making tea. Gaining experience comes with hard work. Use mentors like Mark Shuttleworth, Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Success can begin with baking muffins, sewing on grandma’s old singer or working from your neighbour’s garage.

Tips for parents:

• Don’t nag!
• Encourage your teen to focus on their talents and passions
• Let your teen make the calls and call the shots
• Start local – scan community newspapers and notice boards for job opportunities
• Make use of NGO’s offering free basic training workshops
• If teens WFF (work for free) it gives them the chance to make contacts with the right people
• Encourage creative ideas: e.g. collecting yesterday’s fashion from the wealthy-trendy-upper crust and resell it (washed and ironed) or recycling old computers
• Waitressing – this can be lucrative but shouldn’t be seen as permanent.

You’ll hear ‘Nah!’ to these suggestions but set a dead-line and tell your teen that you have plan B in mind e.g. volunteer him/her to WFF as a teacher’s assistant, on a family farm, grocery store or B&B.

Don’t break their spirit! Don’t keep saying “I told you”. Listen to your teen. If their idea sounds crazy, keep your lips sealed. Once a teen has made up their mind there’s no stopping them – even if it’s only to prove you wrong!

With their matric certificate, teens can apply to go to college/ university/trade-school/au-pairing when applications for 2019 open later in the year. In the meantime, they WILL mature, get their drivers licence, open a savings account, become responsible and gain confidence!

What to look out for in day-care facilities

Choosing the best day care for your child

Women are an important part of the work-force and yet (in South African at least) employers don’t do much to help moms take care of their babies and children when they’re not at home. Some women use the services of an au-pair, a nanny or ask granny to help during baby’s first year. The benefits are that babies don’t have to leave the house, they’re spared crèche infections and enjoy one-on-one attention.

Some crèches have a baby centre. Here’s what to look for when you’re shopping for baby-care:

Is the child-minder friendly? Does she enjoy looking after babies and small children?

Does she have experience? Or children of her own?

Is the facility clean?

Do the babies look happy?

Does the centre provide for the baby’s needs i.e. clean, safe cots, hygienic nappy-changing area, feeding chairs, safe area for babies to crawl around, sufficient staff?

Is the environment colourful and stimulating?

Is the kitchen where food and bottles are prepared, hygienic?

Does each baby have a daily ‘report book’?

Toddlers and young children who go to play-school are:

Developing social skills

Nurturing their intelligence

Learning to talk

Very curious

Play-school needs to fulfil these needs. A nursery-school should not:

Leave the children to watch TV

Leave them to play unsupervised

Medicate them to sleep (sigh!) This happens!

Keep the children inside all day

Expect children of all ages to play together.

Pre-schoolers are prepped for going to ‘big school’. This means learning their reading, writing and numbers. They need to get used to routine and learn to sit still while paying attention for at least 20 minutes at a stretch. They also need to learn to copy from the blackboard and do what the teacher tells them to do – not only what they want to do!

You can help your child cope with nursery school by making sure he is healthy, eats a balance diet and gets at least 12 hours sleep every night. It also helps when the home is organised and there is routine during the week. Because the child does not get to spend a lot of time with his parents, make the evening meal a family occasion and read to your child at bed-time. It’s difficult I know, because parents are frazzled at the end of their busy day, but it’s worth enjoying your children while they’re young. All too soon they will be teenagers who only want to do their own thing.

Top tips:

Children learn confidence when they’re loved

Show an interest in everything that your child does

Reward co-operative behaviour

Listen to your child’s point of view.

Everything you need to know about pregnancy tests

Pregnancy tests

After Christmas and New Year partying, it time to get back to the real world – but you may be stressing about the period you’ve missed.

If you’re hurling your heart out over the toilet every morning, decidedly more irritable (or tearful) than usual and your breasts are popping out of your bra, there’s hardly the need for a pregnancy test. But do one all the same!

Of course, you’ll be skeptical about the results. If the test is negative, you’ll think that you have done the test too early … or maybe you didn’t do it properly, or was there enough pee on the stick … did you aim straight, did you wait long enough or maybe too long? Going for a blood test will give you accurate results – even before you have missed your period.

When a pregnancy test is positive, it can be seriously stressful – particularly if you’re not married / if he’s married / if you’re still at school / if you’re 40-something and you thought you were going through menopause / if you’ve already got an entourage of children!

When using a home pregnancy test:

Check the expirary date

Read the instructions carefully

You can only use the test once

Don’t keep the test in the bathroom cabinet where it can get steamed up, or on the windowsill where there’s too much sunlight

Test your urine first thing in the morning when it’s concentrated. If you need to repeat the test, do it again the next morning. Early morning urine contains higher levels of the pregnancy hormone called hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin).

Most tests can be read after 40 seconds. If there is no change after five minutes, consider the test negative. A negative test cannot become positive. If there's a faint line, the test is positive because there may only a small amount of hCG in your urine if it's very early in the pregnancy. If there are two little pink lines, the test is positive. After 10 minutes the test is no longer valid.

Some pregnancy tests simply say NO / YES or pregnant / not pregnant. Fancier tests can even tell how far pregnant you are.  

Blood or urine test?

While most women can do their own pregnancy test at home, women using IVF (In-Vitro Fertilisation) will have regular blood tests for pregnancy. Women with complicated pregnancies such as repeated miscarriages may need progesterone injections to prevent another miscarriage, so she should have a blood pregnancy test as early as possible.

How do pregnancy tests work?

About eight days after fertilisation, the egg produces a hormone called hCG. This hormone helps to keep the egg alive by making sure that the ovary continues to produce progesterone. Higher levels of progesterone are essential for a pregnancy to be maintained until the fertilised egg reaches the safety of the womb (this takes about 10 days).

When will your baby be born?

Although the baby’s birth date is calculated from the first day of a last period, conception only happens two weeks later when the woman’s body is fertile. This fertility phase or ‘fertile window’ is called ovulation. In the second week of the baby’s development hCG levels double every second day until 7 – 10 weeks when the placenta can make its own hormones. This hormone will be around throughout the pregnancy and up until three days after the birth.

While most women conceive about two weeks after her period, women who ovulate later will conceive later. Conception doesn’t always happen on the day of having sex either. Baby girls can be conceived five days after sex because the girl sperm sometimes ‘holiday’ in the cervix (mouth of the womb) for just as many days! Boy sperm on the other hand are different – they swim faster and don’t take a mid-way break on their perilous journey to the womb. Baby boys are usually conceived on the day of having sex.

Conclusion:

If a woman does a pregnancy test too soon, her test will be negative. It’s safest to wait until she has missed a period to do a home pregnancy test. For women who are anxious to get pregnant, it’s best for her to wait until she has had a scan before telling the world her good news on social media! If this pregnancy is a whoopsie, don’t panic. Phone a friend. Discuss your options. Don’t make any hasty decisions. Remember, every baby is a sacrifical blessing in one way or another!