A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable. Everyone would agree about some social problems, such as murders and theft. Other social problems may be viewed as such by certain groups of people. Teenagers who play loud music in a public park obviously do not view it as a problem, but some other people may consider it as an undesirable condition. Some nonsmokers view smoking as an undesirable social condition that should be banned or restricted in public buildings. According to Medical Webends.com on medical terminology, social problems is “Situation affecting a significant number of people, that are believe to be sources of difficulty or threaten the stability of the community and that require programs amelioration.” From the definition, we can say that social problems actually give bad effects not only to individual, but a large number of peoples. Besides that, the act of social problems can give threaten and need to do something to make a recovery or to make it better.
Nowadays, social problems among teenagers are at the level of concern and become more serious year by year. We can hear or read about social problems or even crime which done by a teenagers in very young age through news in television or newspaper. During these years adolescents are faced with difficult tasks of discovering their self identity, clarifying their sexual roles, assenting independent, learning to cope with authority and searching for goals that would give their lives meaning. At this stage, parents play an important role to guide their children and avoid them from involved in crime or serious problems. Various cases of crime also include Juvenile cases. In 1995, 1895 cases involving teenagers in various kind of crime such as theft, housebreaking, rape, robberies, murders and baby dumping.
Major problems among teenagers are smoking, alcohol and drug use. When teenagers start smoking, a few of them might not end with smoking only. They are using and abusing drugs such as marijuana, ecstasy, heroin and morphine. Adolescent involved with alcohol and drugs in many ways. Unfortunately, they do not see the link between their action today and the consequences in the future. Using alcohol and tobacco at a young age increase the risk of using other drugs later. Some teens will try and stop, some will continue to use drugs seldom without serious problems but others will become addicted to it and will use more dangerous drugs which can harm themselves. There are few reasons why teenagers involved in drugs, smoking and alcohol. Some of them will say that they took alcohol, drugs and tobacco because they want to feel grown up which they will make their own decisions and also be able to do what they want to. The most important and natural part of growing up is to fit in and belong to a group. It is natural that teenagers want others to accept and like them. Sometimes the group they want to join is using the illegal stuffs and they may be attracting to use it too just to fit in the group.
Another serious problem among teenagers today is baby dumping. Baby dumping is a social crisis and has a chronic increase as many cases are occurring in Malaysian society. The baby dumping refers to discarding or leaving alone a child younger than 12 months of age for an extended period of time in a public or private setting with the intent to dispose of the child. Based on Bukit Aman Police Headquarters statistic found a total of 580 babies were found dumped between year 2000 to 2006 and the number increase every year. Usually, teenagers always seen to be involved in this situation. For example, a teenage girl give birth in a motel room and leave the child to be found by other people or more worse throw the baby into the garbage bin. They viewed the baby as a problem to be thrown away rather than gifts to be appreciate. The causes of baby dumping are uncontrolled relationship between boys and girls, lack of parents’ supervision and prostitution.
Illegal racing is also a serious problem which occurs among teenagers. Illegal racing means riding on a motorcycle or driving by doing dangerous style and action with over speed limit and racing with each other in a group without a permit from the government. This activity will cause a very serious danger to themselves and other road users. They are riding and driving a modified motorcycle or car with over speed limit and doing many dangerous actions like superman’s style, stand on the motorcycle’s seat while riding and drive carelessly. They race with each other just to get the prize which usually some amount of money, girls, to show off and also to get praises from their friends on their victory and bravery. Their behavior can cause a serious accident and also death. But most of them did not aware of all these consequences. They are only looking for excitement and self-satisfaction.
The three problems mentioned above are the major among others. There are more other social problems which involved teenagers. There are few questions we can ask ourselves. What are the causes? Why teenagers get involved in such unhealthy activities? Who should be blamed on the problems? How to prevent the problems from ruining the teenagers?
In the young age, the level of curiosity in a teenager’s life is very high. Whatever they hear, see, read and learn about, they will always ask what, why and how. This feeling will encourage them to try a new thing without bothering the effect in their lives. When they see an adult smoking, taking alcohol and drugs, they wonder the taste and the feeling. At this stage, adult especially parents should guide their children and tell them about do and don’t, right and wrong. Teenagers need a clear and transparent explanation why they have to and do not have to do something. Give them the right information without hiding any fact, so that they will understand well the reasons. Never lie to them in order to stop them from doing the wrong things. This action will leave a bad perspective to the teenagers that adults like to lie and make them find the answer through other uncontrolled sources.
Besides curiosity, a teenager love to take risk. In early adolescent years, youth are courageous and may have high risk behaviors. For them, the more challenging and risky the activities, the more excitement and satisfaction they get. This will be a good thing and also bad, depends on how they manage the challenge and what are the activities. As parents, usually they will not allow their children to involve in a risky situation. So, we can assume that the teenagers who love to take risk are always influence by their friends. In this situation, the role of parents is important to know all their children’s friends and their activities. The examples of good challenging and risky activities are hiking, rock climbing, water rafting, diving and jungle tracking. But on the other hand, the bad activities are like illegal racing, vandalism and gangsterism.
Family especially parents play an important role to make sure that their children did not involved in unhealthy activities. There are many teenagers who involved in serious problems lack of love and attention from their parents. Nowadays, the parents are going out early in the morning to go to work and reach home at midnight. They do not have sufficient time with the children. So, who will teach them to be good girls and boys? Who will tell them what are good and bad actions and also what the effects if they are doing the bad things? Having a working parents will be either good or bad thing. When both of them are working, the conflict in the family can be avoided due to double income but for the children, they may be do not have a person to share their feelings, problems, happiness and sadness rather than their friends or outsider.
From the factors we have discussed, we can conclude that education is the most important agenda to prevent our young generations from being manipulated by the tough situation. Parents should enlarge their knowledge and skills on how to teach their children. They should monitor their children from useless or harmful activities. Love your children and develop them to be humble young generation. Therefore, education comes in two forms, informal education from parents and friends, and formal education from school, where knowledge is gained especially in academic fields.
The government also done a lot to be together to control and prevent social problems among teenagers. Many events exhibitions were held to attract youngsters to have healthy lifestyles. For examples, last month there was an event held at Putrajaya known as Million Youth Assembly in conjunction with the National Youth Day 2012 and have many interesting activities. Rather than that, there are many youth club which can be joining by the teenagers according to their interest. So, all teenagers should not waste this opportunity to involved in such healthy activities and enjoy their young age.
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