Рефератнатему
«Problems of the children and the youth»
Подготовила: Димитрова Надежда Александровна
учитель английского языка МОУ СОШ №3
г. Ртищево Саратовской области
Content
I. Problems of the children and the youth
a)Tweens and teens problems
b)Beating children will be a crime
c)High - tech and children
d)Internet addiction
e)A generation gap
f) The problem of love and friendship. Suicide in the young
g)Family problems
h)New anti-drugs campaign for young people
i) Teenagers kill
II. Conclusion
I. Problems of the children and the youth
a) Tweens and teens problems
Everywhere people are rattled about children and young people, who are described these days as "difficult", "rude", "wild" and "irresponsible". Only some people say that they will grow up to make their country a better place. But in all communities the problem is in the centre of public.
For kids from 8 to 14 a new term "tweens" has recently been coined. They are no longer children nor yet teenagers, just between - tweens. They are said to be the largest number in this age group in recent decades and a generation in a fearsome hurry to grow up.
Instead of playing with Barbies and Legos they are pondering the vagaries of love on TV serials. Girls wear provocative makeup created specially for tweens. Now they have more opportunities than ever because the world's economy has been booming. They are accustomed to a world of information and they will probably be the best educated generation in history. A substantial majority go to college.
Children have got an insatiable desire for the latest in everything - from slacks with labels so that everyone will know that they've got the latest stuff - to CDs. To parents and teachers they can be a nightmare, aping the hair, clothes, and makeup of celebrities twice their age - and they are not always helped to get through a confusion of life in a steady, productive way.
Of course every kid's story is unique and there are certainly lots of youngsters who sail through these years with few problems. But many tweens even with sympathetic and supportive parents say that they feel pressurized to act older than they feel. Ann, who is 10, regularly tells her mother all the things she is worried about - her nightly three hours of homework, the kids in her class who are already pairing off. "I am already doing what some people in the 1800s were not doing until they were full-grown adults. I get up at 6.30 every morning, go to school and have to rush through all my classes, come home and work on my homework, walk Luna, the family dog, twice a day, do chores, I like skating, so I go to ice-skating lessons, watch a little TV, talk on the phone, practice playing the piano. If I am lucky I get to sleep at 11 and then the entire ordeal starts again".
It is difficult to cope with all the things children must do, but some parents try to coach and support them in homework, for example, and are sometimes trapped into doing it.
Nowadays tweens and teenagers have more marketing than ever. There is always something new they want. A lot of money goes to clothes; kids their age desperately need to belong. Almost 50 years ago when girls talked about self-improvement they were thinking of doing good works or doing better at school. Now everything comes down to appearance. They think that having the right "stuff is the quickest way to acceptance”. And their influence goes beyond their cupboards. Tweens – Leonardo Di Caprio fans – were a force behind a phenomenal success of "Titanic". They account for a large percent of CD sales. Children have a say in all kinds of purchases – from soft drinks to cars. But why do they have so much to say.
Guilt is one factor. Parents who are not around much often try to compensate by buying their kids almost everything they ask for. There is also a bridery theory – a new CD can buy co-operation in a hectic week.
Children's influence also grows out of a dramatic change in family relationships. Now people treat each other like members of a group, rather than sons and daughters, mums and dads. If parents ask "What do you want?" or say "I am interested in your opinion”, kids may grow up with a false sense of power and may end up spoilt and unhappy because they are not going to have their way all the time. Letting kids have their way means that it is necessary to set limits.
Children are exposed to adult things from birth. The pressure to act like grown-ups starts at home. Many kids are children who grow up single-parent homes. Too old for child care and not old enough to travel about town on their own they are often alone in the afternoon with only the computer or TV, which sucks up most of their free time. Parents try to regulate the number of hours kids watch TV and monitor films. Experts say that the rush to grow up is due to popular media - tweens magazines and TV shows. Being raised by single parents as well as watching TV can also accelerate the desire of children for being independent and creates behavior problems.
But the electronic universe is more comforting than the outside world that can be scary. Most children do not belong to any clubs and just hang about after school. They are worried about being kidnapped by strangers. Besides, friends are becoming increasingly important during these years. At school and colleges there are cliques who decide what is "cool". Many parents are afraid of their children being exposed to drugs. Kids also began cutting down their classmates as in Littleton (USA). "Wild parties with alcohol, smoking, and trying drugs are not for our children," - parents say. Some of them think that they should act as role models and try to show the kind of behavior they want to see in their children.
As kids move to high school and then to college their life get harder not only because classes get harder and homework increases but because it is time to think of life-long goals and choose a profession.
Every society does have a serious problem. It is not the problem of the younger generation but the society itself. Some communities have such a culture that children cannot find a solace in their friend of family and their heads are being filled with violent pictures they have seen on TV. "Filtering software" is proposed to be installed to block violence that flows across the Internet. But some parents think that focus should be made on home and public organizations. They suggest developing such a curriculum both at schools and colleges that would teach youngsters ethics and construct within their minds and hearts an impenetrable shield against the influence of mass media and mean streets.
There is no way to predict how today's children will turn out. Keeping faith in kids is necessary. They are not bad. They are optimistic. They expect to have a better life than their parents and most say that they like school. Parents are their most important influences but they still need a caring adult in daily life helping them grow up to become all they can be.
b) Beating children will be a crime
The government will soon unveil legal moves to ban the use of cane or belt on children. This behavior of parents will be declared unacceptable and will be made a criminal offence in the UK. These developments were pushed by a case of a boy who was repeatedly and severely beaten by his father with a three-foot pole. The father was acquitted in the English court but such mild judgments are going to be stopped. It is decided that beating is in breach of European Convention on Human Rights that guarantees freedom torture or inhuman degrading treatment. Overwhelming majority of parents knows the difference between smacking and beating, but this has to be clarified in the law. Some parents have made a break from smacking their children. Children themselves see no distinction between smacking, hitting, slipping, and a whack. Some parents think that a reasonable punishment for children is beating them with electrical flex and high heeled shoes. Soon parents can be convicted for administering physical punishment on their children in any form.
c) High - tech and children
The fewer children play video games, or watch TV, the less aggressive they become, suggests a scientific study. The American research looked at the effects of reducing the amount of computer games played, or TV watched by third and fourth graders, who are aged approximately eight or nine.
The children assessed how violent their peers were, and it was judged that the more TV and computer games the children had seen, the more aggressive they were. This means that TV, and, more recently, games, have a direct influence on such behavior.
There are potential benefits in reducing the amount of access children have to TV or computer games. This is supported by the findings of reductions in physical and verbal aggression in children who have limited exposure to TV, video and computer games. The world becomes less scary for such children.
Watching aggressive behavior shapes the way children see the world and their behavior. They learn that angry people do aggressive things and start to imitate if the circumstances prompt similar solutions. High technology now has every opportunity to make the picture on the screen look real with the super quality image, pure sound and even close-to-the natural size.
There is a difference between watching a cartoon where the characters are aggressive but not real. A real aggressive person is a different thing. It is more realistic. Another important development is that if children watch less TV they start interacting with their peers and develop social skills.
The idea of experiment was simple. A computer was installed on the wall facing a slum. Researchers then started watching what was going to happen. Children in the slum were intrigued by the icons on the computer, and without any help gradually figured out how to use the computer and access the Internet.
A computer study is a subject in many schools and many young people have personal computers. About one in three hundred computer owners spend almost all their free time using computers.
Some parents worry about computer games because they think their children won't be able to communicate with real people in the real world. But parents do not need to worry. According to research computer addicts usually do well after they have left school. Parents also do not to worry that computer addiction will make their children become unfriendly and unable to communicate with people. It is not the computer that makes them shy. In fact, what they know about computers improves their social lives. They become experts and others come to them for help and advice.
For most children computer games are a craze. Like any other craze, such as skate-boarding, the craze is short-lived. It provides harmless fun and a chance to escape.
If we did not have these computer addicts, we would not have modern technology. They are the inventors of tomorrow.
d) Internet addiction
Information is becoming the drug of nowadays. The research, conducted among 1000 managers in Britain, America, Europe and Far East shows that, as information sources such as the Internet and the cable news channels proliferate, we are witnessing the rise of a generation of dataholics.
The guest for information can lead to stress. Almost two-third said their leisure time had been curtailed as a result of having to work late to cope with vast amounts of information, 70% reported loss of job satisfaction and tension with colleagues because of information overload.
The study also investigated the habits of the children of 300 managers and found 55% of parents were concerned their children would become information junkies. Forty-six% of parents believed their children spent more time on their PCs than interacting with friends.
In one case a child had to be wheeled with his computer to the dinner table. Sue Feldman, mother of Alexander, 13, a self-confessed Internet-addict, said she had not yet been forced to wheeling her son and computer to her table, but said she often served him sandwiches and crisps at his bedroom computer.
Alexander switches on his computer every day when he returns from school. "I'd confess to spending up to 4 hours a day in the Internet looking for information and speaking to friends. It is like an addiction", Alexander said.
"If I can not get on to my computer or Internet, I do get really frustrated". He spends most of his time finding out the latest information on pop groups and facts for his homework.
"My parents have to tell me to get off the computer, and they complain a lot, but they also see it as a good thing. Practically everyone in my class has a PC with Internet access so all my friends are also on-line. It is the way forward.
Although Internet is intended for getting knowledge, only few users employ it in this way. Other users employ the ICQ programme only for chatting. They can sit for 22 hours at their displays carrying on endless chats with newly made friends. And it is a great problem of the present and future. Such young people do not eat, sleep, work or learn properly. They are only interested in their e-mail boxes. The best way for them is to go on chatting with their ICQ partners without meeting them. In general, all the problems of the youth are linked with the present rather than with the past or future.
Last week, I a private rehabilitation clinic outside Edinburgh, Leo Edwards, a 16-year-old schoolboy, was going through severe withdrawal symptoms. His body often shook violently and uncontrollably, and at mealtimes he regularly threw cups and plates around the dinner room. The boy's addiction had nothing to do with alcohol, drugs, gambling or food. His problem was "Net obsession" - an over-dependency on the Internet.
An international group of psychologists has recently suggested that anyone who surfs the Internet for long periods is clinically ill and needs medical treatment. According to their report, Internet addicts should be treated in the same way as alcoholics, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers and people with eating disorders.
Leo Edwards is not an isolated case. Russell Hopkins, aged 15, from Gateshead in north-east England, is a typical online addict. Every day after school, and after dinner until 3 or 4 in the morning, he will be found in his room surfing the Net or playing computer games. By the end of the day he will have spent more than six hours online. Understandably, his parents are extremely worried. Not only has his school work suffered, but Russell's addiction has also destroyed his social life and his spare time interests. For instance, he has just dropped out of his school's basketball team in order to spend more time at his computer. Instead of spending next weekend having a good time out with friends, he will be spending it indoors surfing the Internet. Russell has recently joined at Internet online support group. It may seem ironic that many of the support groups for Internet addicts are online but at least Russell has sought help. Not everyone does. Dr. Ann Hoffman, who runs an online support group, says, "People do not realize that being online for more than 4 hours a day amounts to addiction and they have a serous problem. I predict that the number of people who join online support groups will have risen dramatically within 3 years.
e) A generation gap
Youth is the time when a person is trying to find his place in the world. And during this search he or she comes across different problems which are as important as those of the adults. The youth of the 21st century face almost the same problems which were acute to their parents when they were young.
One of them is a generation gap. Every generation is unique in its experience. It has its own ideals and system of values concerning every aspect of human life. Adults always complain that the young are not what they were. These words are repeated from generation to generation. Undoubtedly it is correct. In fact today the young are better educated. They grow up more quickly. They derive joy from more freedom. At present the young do not blindly accept the ideals of their parents. For them everything that the adults bear in mind is past history. And this is inevitable; because different generations take different directions.
Moreover, the young look forward and the old people look backward. The young people know what they want. They prefer to make their own mistakes rather than to listen to the warnings of the adults. The young people want to live their own life. They want to overcome their own difficulties without turning back. Unfortunately, the life of the young is frequently determined by the adults. The adults start the war but the young die in it. The young and the adults have different points of view concerning everything. And it generates the conflict of the generations. In the 19th century Ivan Turgenev in his novel "Fathers and Sons" perfectly illustrated the eternal problem of fathers and children's misunderstanding. Many young people have other interests. For some of them getting knowledge is of primary importance. They are fond of reading serious books, listening to serious music. They go to the conservatories and theatres. They are engaged in Hi- Tech through the Internet.