This is the VOA Special English Education Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglishParents are a child's first teachers. But some parents never learned from good examples. In New York City, a nonprofit agency called Covenant House tries to help homeless young mothers become good parents. The twelve or so teenagers who live at the shelter attend parenting classes four days a week. The class is called Mommy and Me. Teacher Delores Clemens is a mother of five and a grandmother. She teaches basic skills, like how to give a baby a bath and how to dress a baby depending on the season. She remembers one student who learned from her mother not to pick up a crying baby. The mothersaid that would only make the child needy and overly demanding. Delores Clemens told the student: "That's not true. You have to hold your baby. He is crying for a reason. If you never pick him up, he's going to keep crying. Pick your baby up. Cuddle your baby. Hug him!"Delores Clemens says her students also learn how to be good mothers by letting themselves be mothered. She said: "I'm doing something for them that never has been done for them before." Around three hundred fifty teenage mothers graduate from Covenant House's Mommy and Me class every year. Natasha is in class one day with herbaby son. She lived on the streets. She is glad not only for the warmth and shelter of Covenant House. She is also glad for the help they offer in seeking a more secure life. She said: "They help you do your resume, your cover letter and everything you need for a job interview, and they help you find a job." Some teenage mothers wish they could be children themselves again. Eighteen-year-old Placida knows that feeling. She says being amother is hard. She said: "You have to get up every two hours in the middle of the night, and you can't go out and say 'I am going to buy this for myself.' No. Ihave to buy Pampers, clothes and food." The World Health Organization says the United States has forty-one births for every one thousand girls age fifteen to nineteen per year. That is higher than other developed countries, as well as some developing ones. By comparison, Canada has fourteen birthsfor every one thousand girls age fifteen to nineteen and Mexico has eighty-two. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. You can comment on this report at voaspecialenglish.com.
(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 13May 2010)
(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 13May 2010)
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