Waleed Sami

Life Span Psychology

Health Education
3/29/14
Healthy Eating:
1. Highlight the growing subsistence needs of teens around this teen
2. Important to make healthy eating choices! Stay away from processed foods and
caffeine over-dose which is a problem amongst teens. Vegetables and cooked meats
are important
3. Touch on eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia. How to look for signs in
friends and how to look to community resources to help
4. Talk about iron deficiency and anemic issues amongst teenagers
5. Talk about the how important it is to have family meals, and how it the bonds with
family during adolescence are difficult.
6. Show examples of the effects of Bulimia and Anorexia

Preventing STDS
1.
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Talk about all the different STDs

Discuss condom usage and statistics on them and how they prevent STDs
Discuss how abstinence is always the safest way to keep away from STDs
Explain how adolescents are the one group that has the highest chance for STDs due to
their burgeoning sexuality and youth.
5. Touch on AIDS. Speak on the consequences, the statistics, how to protect oneself and
who is vulnerable.
6. Touch on condom usage and oral sex. Statistics show that teenagers engage in oral sex
more than intercourse but do not use protection and how STDs can be propagated

Pregnancy
1. Point out the effective use of contraception in mitigating pregnancy
2. Show TV clips of MTVs Im 16 and Pregnant show, just to scare the heck out of the
kids.
3. Exploring how ones life gets worse for adolescents after pregnancy in terms of
education, economics, and marriage.
4. Exploring strategies to prevent pregnancy like education and media
5. Showcasing resources to help and guide adolescents who are parents

6. Directing teenagers in my class to resources in our school they can use if confused about
contraception and pregnancy

Sexual Orientation
1. Describe statistics on those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender.
2. Describe the role of heredity in sexual orientation.
3. Hold frank and open discussion on sexual orientation and its impact on our culture and
relationships with people.
4. Talk about our current cultural views towards different sexual orientations
5. Dispel misconceptions and stereotypes on sexual orientation
6. Discuss health and safe sex and how important it is to practice them no matter what
orientation you are.

Cognitive Development
1. Due to adolescents greatly expanded reasoning powers and thoughts, engage them in
discussion and debates to prompt their thinking.
2. Go over Piagets theories including deductive reason and propositional thoughts
3. Speak about an adolescents sensitivity to criticisms publically and how to steel oneself.
4. Speak about the effects of drug use and the permanent issues it creates with cognitive
development and addictions patterns
5. Highlight the personal fable, and about remaining humble and not falling into a pattern of
self-critiscm.
6. Modeling effective decision making. Making good decisions sets the basis for ones life,
especially at adolescence.

I excluded the idea of scientific reasoning and going into why that develops. Most
adolescents will get bored with overly-technical explanations, and most like to think
emotionally anyways. I feel you would connect more if you had an emotional background
and explanation that affected teenagers more. I left out topics on abortion, just because in my
area they are highly controversial, and I need to think and develop a strategy for
communicating that.