Orem’s Supportive-Educative system theory can be a great foundation to car for a teen mom who needs to learn how to care for her infant and herself. Esthetic and ethical patterns of knowledge are particularly helpful in giving the young mother the education she needs. When using these patterns, nurses can more effectively teach the new mother what she needs to know.
When dealing with a teen mother a nurse will notice that a teen mother knows how to care for herself, but has even limited knowledge in this area. The self care theory allows for one to better understand the position of the patient. As a teen parent there is a lot of new information to learn and the responsibility of the nurse is to teach and guide the young girl helping her learn self care as well as infant care.
The empirical pattern of knowing helps a nurse to keep informed about what information is relevant in the teaching of a teenage mother. It is important to teach young parents about child growth and development, discipline strategies, and even the significance of play. The teaching is very important for young mothers because they can be quite immature and lack true experience in caring for children.
Esthetic knowing is also important on the part of a nurse. This is having empathy and the ability to focus on the teen mother as an individual. This allows for the nurse to connect to the patient and what their specific needs are. This also helps for the patient to really grasp what is being taught to her by the nurse.
The conclusion is that, having the ability to use empirical patterns of knowing and esthetic knowing will help a nurse relate to a teen mom in a much better fashion, which will make the relationship more open. Having an open relationship is important because the teen will be more likely to take in the information that she really does need to know to take care of herself as well as her infant.
