Most young children receive care from pediatricians or family physicians. Others may have seen nurse practitioners or physician assistants. These same providers will likely remain receptive to caring for teens. Parents can make a simple phone call to their chosen provider to find out who their child should see. Obviously, there is no substitute for quality parenting.
Most adolescents make decisions based upon values that they have learned at home.
However, all teens need the opportunity to ask for truthful advice from a nonjudgmental adult. The health care provider can serve this purpose well, but only if the visits are frequent enough to foster a trusting relationship. If you have a teenager in your family, please encourage a preventive visit. Everyone can remember how awkward their teenage years were. Eleven to seventeen seems to be the time when most adolescents feel that everyone around them is more fashionable, more popular and more cool than they are.