Your Teen Wants to Have Plastic Surgery- What is a Parent to Do?

Your teenager daughter is not happy with the size of her breasts and she wants to have breast augmentation. Or maybe it is the size of her nose she does not like. Or maybe it is your son who wants to alter some aspect of his appearance because he is unsatisfied with it. As a parent what should you do if your teenager expresses the desire to have a plastic surgery procedure?

While plastic surgery may not be appropriate for every appearance flaw of your teen's it might be a very good decision in some cases. You need to sit down and talk with your son or daughter about the seriousness of the matter. You need to learn what their motivation is behind wanting to have the surgery and you also have to make sure that there is maturity accompanying your teenager's desire to undergo a surgical procedure to transform his or her appearance.

As a concerned parent, whether you yourself have ever had a cosmetic operation or not, you may wonder how safe it is for a person who is not yet an adult to have breast implants or a nose job or some other type of procedure performed by a plastic surgeon. The stakes do tend to be higher for this age group but not because it is less safe for those under the age of 20. The stakes are higher because your child is a minor and for that reason it is absolutely essential that he or she fully understand not just the short-term implications of having a plastic surgery operation but also the long-term implications as well.

The number one concern that every surgeon has is the safety of his patient. When an individual wishes to have an elective procedure such as breast augmentation there needs to be even more scrutiny of the operation because the question needs to be whether the benefits of the operation will outweigh the risks of having it? The safety issue is even greater when the person wishing to have plastic surgery is a child. Most cosmetic surgeons will require that a potential patient who is a teenager have a thorough physical examination to figure out if that individual is a viable candidate for the elective procedure or not.

Teenage patients need to be treated with the same level of respect and integrity as do adult patients. It is important to bear in mind that a teenage male or female has his or her own reasons for wanting to have the surgery in the first place. If the motivation for wanting to have the procedure is reasonable then the cosmetic doctor can determine if the operation is indeed necessary and if it is then at what age having it would be best. It is important to bear in mind that teenagers are still growing and therefore some elective operations are not a good idea.