No Easy Task

The well being of a nation begins with the development of its younger generation. They are the ones that will assume the task of running and maintaining the well being of this nation in the future. Unfortunately the task of to lead these youths in the right direction is no easy task. Numerous articles and studies have confirmed that our youth problems is a rising issue and should receive extra attention. Youth problems range from poor school achievement to youth pregnancy, crime, and drug addictions. Many experts have noted that one of the major causes that contribute to youth having problems is the lack of strong family value and substantial home-life. Youth belonging to this category are normally ones that have single parents or weak or uncaring parents. The above perspective along with some other variables, such as income level, media influence, and educational level, should explain why the youth problem phenomenon occurs. One of the fundamental ways to view why youth develop problems is to view their family structure. Many youth do not have what is considered to be a healthy or complete family. For example, if a youth is raised by a single parent, he or she may lack many of the family essentials, such family warmth, love sharing, or normal family life. The youth may also develop shame feelings among his or her peers. Another scenario might be a youth raised by weak and uncaring parents. The youth might not receive the adequate attention and guidance necessary for their thoughts, actions, and perhaps wrongdoing. In this case the youth may develop two types of feelings. They will either feel abandon because of the parents uncaring nature, or, the youth might feel exceptional freedom because the parents simply is weak or do not care. In both cases, youths having such family structures develops much higher percentage to differentiate themselves from their common peers. The second variable that seems to have a large influence as to why youth develop problems is the income level in which they reside. Income level is one of the issues that can t be changed so easily. Government aid and subsidies could only do so much in the aid of poverty stricken neighborhoods. Generally a great percentage of youth growing up in such a poor neighborhoods have a higher chance in exposing themselves to the numerous problems, such as, pregnancy, drugs, crimes. It is unfortunate, but no doubt that environment in which these youth grew up in are surrounded by such factors. Government funding and local group activist have trying to cure these blighted neighborhoods. Local activity centers, and youth organizations, and schools are fighting there ways into these area in hope to help give youth of these communities a better chance to succeed. Another variable that should be considered in why youth develop problems is media influences. Like Debra J. Saunders noted in her December 1999 editorial, youth are constantly being expose to the electronic media set out to influence youth to follow certain trends and mode of thinking. This is very true in this cyberspace, electronic media era. The Internet, television, and other media unconsciously place many messages in the minds of the youths. The youth are spending more of their time attracted to these media than they are in their necessary duties. The power or the media is so great that many of the youths mode of thinking are drawn to the character lifestyles of movies idols. The media have directly manipulated what is reality and what is fantasy in the mind of the youths. Therefore youths often try to be somebody or do something they saw from these electronic media exposures. Perhaps that the numerous in school shootings by teenage youths across the nation are the indirect results from too much media exposures toward youths. The final area that seems to contributes to youth problems are the educational level in which the youths are associated with. Educational levels vary greatly in schools that youths attend. The educational achievement accomplished by students determines if new educational programs are needed to aid underachieving students build there necessary skills to advance. Because the lack of such programs in some school, many youths in this category, find it difficult to continue their educational course. Therefore the rate of youth problems is the dependent variable of the drop out rate. Many students choose to alternative course of action if they cannot succeed in school. Their minimum knowledge is insufficient to land them much hope in making it the real world. Consequently problems are prone to along the route for these youths. We have briefly looked into the issue on contributing factors in youth problems. The variables we discussed are family structures, income level, media influences, and educational levels. It is important to acknowledge how these links intertwine in the life of a developing youth. Though we cannot simply generalize that a youth will develop problems once they have encounters with any or all of these variables for there are numerous successful examples for us to refer upon. But numerous studies have shown that the risk for youth to develop problems such as teen pregnancy, crime, drugs, and violence is at a higher rate when they are being raised in an environment that contains the variable we have discussed today.