Common teenage issues?
3rd November 2006
A recent BBC news revealed that Teenagers in the UK are struggling to cope with life.
More British teenagers leave school with good qualifications and go to university than ever before.
Youth unemployment has fallen dramatically in the last 25 years.
Today’s parents are richer than ever before and young people have access to an extraordinary range of activities and opportunities undreamt of even a generation ago.
And yet the mental well-being of our adolescents is among the worst in Europe: one in 10 teenage girls has self-harmed. Child obesity is increasing.
One of the biggest worries Is behavior. During this period of socialization, many of the UK students and up being with their peers and engage in fairly unsavory and bad behavior. However, it seems pretty much the same here in Singapore!
it seems reminiscent of students who have not developed a high enough sense of self efficacy . If the students in the UK are experiencing greater self worth interacting with the teenage friends, then it begs the question, what is going on in the family? Cultural evidence shows that as we become more distant from our parents, a large proportion of our separate and coping mechanisms rest on peers who don’t necessarily have the same level of experience and skill or even common sense to help us. The effect of what we often refer to as the generation gap, widens.
I guess this doesn’t just like in with a soft skills are being taught to these children. It is far more than just that. After all, how many skills have you learned that you don’t put into practice? It is more the ability for parents and their teenage children are like to see eye to eye with each other, gain the new found respect for each other, and be able to connect at some level other than just in an argument.
What I find most disconcerting is this statement from the research body that brought up this problem with the teenagers.
“Young people who do not have access to the factors that develop their non-cognitive abilities are increasingly vulnerable to failure, while their better socialised peers will increasingly succeed.”Â
 Isn’t it time for all the adults both in Singapore and in the UK alike to own up to the fact that they probably aren’t as well cut out for the new generation of children as they thought they could be? Most parents are now involved in commercial activities such as starting a business running it and making money. That’s why parents are far richer than they were ten or twenty years ago. However, this also increases the divide between Parents and their children. we need to remember that children do not have a concept of the working world. It is very simple for us to say that we’re working very hard, but there is no empathy. This ties in with the fact that I believe parents need to be aware of — that is they need to communicate the everyday experiences to mentor the children in the ways of the working world. After all, if I don’t know what you’re up to, it’s easy for me to think that what you’re doing is not important.
Is this a motivational issue? Is this a skill issue? Is this a cultural issue?
The answer is quite plain and simple. If we are going to continue to put all blame on teenagers now on parents now and skills not learned, then I think we’re missing the point. The fact is, every family has its dynamics. Everybody has played a part to contribute to the problem. Now, it’s time for everybody to play a part to contributed to the solution. I know it’s not easy to accept responsibility for something so large and so huge. After all as a parent, how would you would know that the pace of information would explode so quickly? As a child how would you know that you had so many extra expectations to live up to in this new information age?
The truth is we’re still finding our way and coping. Hopefully, there will come a day where parents and their teenagers alike will be able to share their thoughts and dreams the way some great families do. Perhaps it’s time in this day and age to be aware that a family of excellence is what it takes to really succeed. This really calls for a new attitude towards bringing up children, running a household, communicating with your parents, and dealing with school. With the increase in divorce rates, single parent families, and media influences that a fairly unsavory, it is not the world we used to know.
Once we begin to acknowledge this, new solutions can begin to flow. Perhaps this is a good time to hear from those of us who are children and have had to “deal with” our parents, and those of us were parents will have to “deal with” our children.
Looking forward to seeing some of your comments!