Help your pregnant daughter with: Support Systems

The other day we posted about the topic "How much should parents help their pregnant single daughter?"We've received this question is various forms. Another way this has been phrased is "How does a mom support her pregnant daughter?" Keywords we've seen on our statistics include phrases like "helping your pregnant daughter." That post focused on the minimum basics of safe housing, nutrition, and medical care. Today let's talk about some other help beyond the minimum basics.

Beyond the minimum basics of housing, nutrition, and medical care, parents of a pregnant teen or college student should consider how they might help with these goals:

1. Helping your daughter remain in school until graduation.
2. Preventing subsequent adolescent pregnancies.
3. Improving parenting skills.
4. Locating and using community resources.
5. Stabilizing family support systems. (Today's topic)
6. Strengthening employability skills and efforts to become economically self-sufficient.

Again, your motive of considering these kinds of help is not to reward your daughter's sexual activity and pregnancy outside of marriage, but to help get her on the road to independence and to help give your grandchild a better start in life. Today's topic is:

5. Stabilizing family support systems. This phrase doesn't mean just that the family supports the pregnant daughter, but that the entire family has other people that help the family. Think about how easy it is to break a single popcicle stick. But it is much harder to break a handful of sticks. By having many sticks put together in a bundle the sticks are much stronger and very difficult to break. The same is true for people. When we are isolated and alone, the stress of life can become overwhelming. However, when we have people who can provide us with support we are made stronger and more resilient against the stress of life. The Bible expreses this thought in Ecclesiastes 4:12, "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." (NIV)

Social support has been defined as the emotional, instrumental, or informational help that other people provide an individual. Each member of your family needs each kind of social support:

Emotional support is the type of support that helps you feel good about yourself. It is provided when someone really listens to you and helps you sort through your thoughts and feelings.

Instrumental support, another type of support, is given when someone provides concrete help to you, such as giving you money, doing your dishes, or babysitting for you.

Informational support, a third type of social support, refers to advice or information gained about decisions, such as parenting, employment, or medical concerns.

These various types of support can come from many different sources. Get a piece of paper for you and one for your daughter. Make three columns on each sheet: Emotional support; Instrumental support; and Informational support. Then each of you list people and organizations that help you currently with that type of support. Write down how they provide you support. Now discuss your sheets together: What types of support do you need more of? Brainstorm ways to get more support in those areas, perhaps by finding community resources that can help. For example, if there is a pregnancy care center near you, they may be able to help with mentoring and education for you and your pregnant daughter.

Some of the above inofrmation was from a Michigan State University Extension program called "Caring for My Family". The Caring for my Family curriculum helps mothers and fathers of newborns learn about building healthy relationships through a series of interactive educational experiences. The purpose of the program is to equip unmarried mothers and fathers with skills for making healthy decisions and to explore future options for their relationship including the potential of getting married. New parents will learn skills for parenting together and strengthening their family unit. You might want to do some of these lessons with your family.