Kids and Health Care: Kids and Drinking and Drugs and Sex Introduction

As your kids reach their teens, you may begin to worry about how they will respond to the drinking, drugs and sex that are a part of American culture -- if not their specific social world. You may be worrying about these matters even before they are teens. The anecdotal evidence of problems is certainly out there, with constant media reports of ever-younger kids involved in abusive use of controlled substances or reckless sexual activity.

In this chapter, we'll take a quick look at the health issues posed by drinking, drugs and sex for teenagers and older children. And we'll consider how health insurance and health plans deal with these issues.