In the summer of 1996, The Frontline Documentary The Lost Children of Rockdale County investigated what happens when teenagers did not have enough supervision from their parents at home. The documentary took a place in the town of Conyers that is located 15 miles East of Atlanta. In this town, the majority of these teenagers come from wealthy families of a middle class. They did not seem to suffer from economic problems because their parents spend most of their time away from home working. Since they did not have anyone who paid attention or controlled them, they took advantage of their freedom in attending more parties, drinking, or having sex at an early age. Many of these events occurred because they were looking for something to do on the…
According to expert Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a modern stage of life has come about since the passing of the millennium. The University of Pennsylvania has a team of professionals in different fields that study the shift that occurs after adolescence. They wrote a book explaining this specific process. It seems as though adolescents are stuck in the transition between their teenage years and adulthood. Young adults are staying at home and going to school much longer. These factors are giving the effect that “emerging adulthood” is not happening as quickly. Desirable careers, as society sees it, are only available to the greatly educated, therefore prolonging maturity.…
In the article entitled “A Generation Struggling: Rich Kids are Losing” Dr. Brian Carr discusses how all teenagers have problems affecting others in life. First, Carr shows how high rates of substance abuse, depression, anxiety, cheating, and stealing can lead to the offspring of being more distressed. The author focuses on how groups of teens and young adults are abused by using hard drugs, brings-drinking, and using marijuana at high notes. In addition, he points out that younger children usually simplify to the lack of parental control and have involved and behavior and actions of parental rule. Moreover, he emphasizes that their academic undoings they fail to attend class and turn in an assignment they pressure or stress on them to get…
Gladwell’s overall claim in this chapter is that the class and family life you come from affects your chance of success. Coming from a lower class, Gladwell says, causes you to be less assertive around authority and less pressured into ambition. Parents of lower class families often do not encourage their kids to fine tune their talents through extra-curricular activities, but in middle to upper class families, kids are able to partake in multiple activities with the support of their parents. Also, in middle to upper class families, children are taught a “sense of entitlement that… is an attitude perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world” (Gladwell 108). Children in the lower class are not taught this and therefore deprived of the advantage of knowing how to assert themselves.…
Strapped: Why America’s 20 and 30 Somethings can’t get Ahead. She is a part of generation X, which gives her firsthand experience about the subjects covered in the book. Her studies and writings focus on the growing economic insecurity, rising debt among citizens and declining opportunity that now characterize American society.…
Today’s teenagers also face the problem of making right decisions. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the right and wrong choice. They are born into this user-unfriendly world. According to the reading “Expert from Swagger, by Lisa Bloom”, we see that the three biggest challenges/ influences for raising American boys today are: thug culture, the education, and the harshest economy.…
Anderson, Gosta. “The Generational Conflict Reconsidered” Journal of European Social Policy Vol. 12, (2002) : 21 10-11-2011 http://www.esp.sagepub.com…
Couches parents openly admitted that their son had access to drugs and alcohol at an early age. “He was allowed to drive to his private school when he was 13. He often stayed by himself or with friends, largely unsupervised, at his family's second home,” said the Chicago Tribune.” Stated Luthar Barry, who has spent about 20 years studying and documenting the growth of dysfunction among affluent youth writes in the great debate, “It would be foolish to allow an absurd effort to minimize one teenager’s responsibility for a horrific tragedy to obscure growing evidence that we have a significant and growing crisis on our hands.” She claims that “The children of the affluent are becoming increasingly troubled, reckless, and self-destructive.”…
In urban communities today, many youth fall short from what is really needed to grow up and live a successful life. This is due to the fact they are missing much needed guidance and support from their parents and families. Many youth grow up in single parent homes, which the majority of times the single parent is the Mother, having to work to take care of the family and the children fall short of adequate supervision and guidance. This causes the youth to get into all sorts of situations that may lead to many issues or problems. Such as, dropping out of school at a very young age; getting involved in gangs, drugs and all sorts of malicious behavior. Another reason youth get into problems are there is no real or enough activities for them to stay preoccupied so that they will not fall to the streets for something to do, and if there are programs for the youth to attend the price for them are very high and most likely the parents or guardians cannot afford them, so this leaves the youth out with nothing to do. Another reason why the youth in urban communities are not doing so well they say they feel disconnected, in a study by a Cornell researcher say they feel disconnected from their community. The reasons for this come, in part, from feeling discriminated against by unknown adults on the streets, in businesses and by the police. The young people also report feeling disconnected from their schools. The older the students, the less connected they say they feel. “Many young people in this study believed that they were individually and collectively invisible to many adults and adult systems," said Janis Whitlock, a Cornell research associate reporting her findings in her doctoral dissertation.…
In the essay “A Note to Parents,” Ruben Navarrette, Jr. writes about the current parental issue on how the parents are approaching their children in supporting them. Ruben Navarrette, Jr. first starts off his essay with his memories of home on how his grandpa managed to keep his five sons, including his father, away from kids who can be bad influences such as toying with switchblades and stealing. Now that the writer is getting ready to start a family, his concern is the thought that his kids might get influenced by kids with BMW’s and $1000 handbags. Parents these days can be too lenient and demand too little from their children. That is why the parents are trying to make up for their absence of being too busy with work by giving cash to their children and/or by buying them things that they request. The writer closes his essay with his thought that parents should “close their wallets, take 10 minutes,” to think further about what they are really taking away from their children—they should actually be learning what it is to stay hungry for success.…
Is it true that wealth has a determining factor on one's success? Is it simply easier for a person with a wealthy background to be more successful? In order to answer these questions, we can analyze children's academic success within different socioeconomic classes. KIPP Academy is a public charter school that is located the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. What is different about KIPP is its success rate. In Malcom Gladwell's book, the Ouliers, he discusses KIPP's success, claiming that, "by the end of eighth grade, 84 percent of the students are preforming at or above their grade level" (parenthetical citation). KIPP is able to achieve this success through their rigor. Children that attend KIPP spend fifty to sixty percent more time learning than average public school students. KIPP children even spend an extra three months at school during the summer. This shows that with more time and opportunities, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are able to reach high levels of academic success.…
With the transformation of American society from a commonwealth model to a capitalistic one, young American men left their families and pursued their individual interests. Quickly, American society realized that the new system had many defects. The process of fixing those defects did not pass without creating victims. For example- Industrial Capitalism created a corrupt youth. Inexperienced young men found themselves without family guidance and under the unfamiliar cultural and social pressures of the new life. Society leaders thought that prescriptive literature and lectures would be enough to guide the youth to the virtuous world. In reality, youth required more than that. Young men required supervision and laws to correct and rectify the corrupt ones.…
Children are raised to believe they have to grow up and make tons of money or they'll never be happy in life. If you don’t graduate from high school and go to college and get a master’s degree and get a job that pays six figures then you’re…
With the rising poverty levels in today’s society, the amount of youth that has been affected by poverty has increased substantially, rising more than fifty percent in the last twenty years. Studies show that there are at least nine million kids living in high-poverty areas of the United States. Children raised in poverty have no choice, but are forced to view the American dream in a very grim manner. For children and young kids growing up in high poverty areas drugs, violence, and hunger are usually viewed on an everyday basis and become their only reality. Numerous aspects of poverty all come together to lead to a change in prospect and a difference in the futures of many youth born into a cycle with no choice. There are many negative effects of growing up in a high poverty area.…
Growing up poor was important for my intellectual development. I was angry, upset, and humiliated that my parents were (and still are) on welfare. I would go through life hearing people say that poor people are lazy, need to find a job, stop leeching off people who actually work, and so on. The people who typically said these phrases lived in their own ignorant world, without actual regard or compassion for others who aren't so fortunate. Not once did I view unwealthy people as "lazy", in fact, they are one of the hardest workers I have ever seen in my life.…