Why Do So Many Teenagers Run Away From Home - Research Paper Example

Why Do So Many Teenagers Run Away From Home? Abstract The number of teenagers running away from their home is growing day by day in America. Sociologists put forward many reasons for such increased run away from home. The feeling of insecurity seems to be the major reason behind this social problem. Mother's death or a stepfather's sexual molestation, increased divorce rate, lack of care and attention from the parents etc are some of the other major reasons for the teenage run away from home. Teenage runaway from home results in many social problems. The teenagers who take shelter in the streets often engage in antisocial activities like, robbery, violence etc. Moreover, these teenagers often face sexual exploitation and antisocial elements make use of such teenagers for conducting their missions. This paper briefly analyses the causes and effects of teenage run away from home. Why Do So Many Teenagers Run Away From Home? “Typically, a runaway is defined as a person under the age of eighteen voluntarily leaves home or another residence and thereby the custody of parents or guardians” (Flowers, 2001, p.3). Even though run away has no uniform definition, we can generally define it as leaving of home by the teenagers without their parent’s permission. Runaways are classified into four categories; floaters, runaways, splitters; hard rock freaks Floaters leave home for a shorter period whereas the runaways usually result in long periods of isolation from home. Splitters are the ones who leave their home for pleasure seeking whereas hard rock freaks leave their home permanently having chosen a life of their own (Flowers, 2001, p.4). Earlier, the relationships between the parent and the children were so strong and hence the runaway problems were less. Parent-children relationship has been changed a lot in the current century. It was a divine relationship earlier and became diplomatic at present. The generation gap is growing between the parents and the children. The parental rights now have been transformed as parental responsibilities. Right and responsibility have huge differences. The terms right have much more significance than responsibility. Today’s parents consider their commitments towards their children just like a responsibility rather than their right. The transformation of parental responsibility from right to a responsibility has decreased the relationships between the children and parent and subsequently runaway problems started to increase. The parents fail to identify the teenage problems correctly. They have their own personal, professional and social problems and hence failed to spend more time with their children in order to identify their needs. In short, lack of parental care is one of the major reasons of teenage runaways. A relatively high incidence of runaway behaviour may be indicative of family discord. Adolescent runaways believe that their homes were conflictual and intolerable (Rohr, 1997, p.4). Family problem is another major reason for the teenage runaways. The conflicts between the parents often create problems to the development of children. Drug addiction or alcohol addiction of either of the parents may create family problems. In America single parenthood is growing because of the increased divorce rate. A teenager needs the care and attention of both the father and mother and in the absence such love and care, he/she may think in terms of running away from home. In a divorced family the children were forced to stay with either hi/her father or mother, which may result in getting only the half attention he deserves. Mother plays a crucial role in her child’s life. Mothers play the most part in raising the kids. Her role can be three quarters of parenting. Nevertheless, the role they play prior the birth. Nobody can substitute her. She bonded with her kids from the early days of pregnancy to a very late age. She teaches her kids the norms and right behaviours. Father's role is complement to mother's role and yet very important. Father is the person whom the child admired and looks up to as an ideal. Father's company gives the profound feeling of protection. Father is the one whom the son needs in life-school. From life experience, fathers usually want their sons and daughters to live better life than his. In single parenthood, the child gets only the services of father or mother which develop dissatisfaction and result in subsequent runaways. Parents in the past were keen in giving advices and tips to their children for streamlining them in the right track. But at present, parents are not much interested in advising their children because of their lack of time and interest. In fact children considered their parents as role models in the past. However, at present many incidents were reported in which the father sexually exploited his female children. In some cases the sexual abuse may come from the step father. But in many cases, even the original father tries to molest his children. Children brought up in such families may definitely think in terms of runaways. Symptoms of psychopathology, peer relationships, school problems, delinquent behaviour, etc are other reasons for teenage runaways (Rohr, 1997, p.4). The individual pathology perspective of runaway problem places the causes in the individual like depression, low self esteem, loneliness, lack of internal impulse control, delinquent tendencies etc (Schaffner, 1999, p.8). Some teenagers have genetic traits for runaways. Such children may not develop properly because of genetic and environmental reasons. Improper psychological development often makes the child depressive. Lack of self esteem is another major problem for such children. These children will avoid the company of others and may create a world of their own. The loneliness, depression and lack of self esteem finally drive away such children from their home. “Girls are more likely to runway from home than boys according to studies, surveys and arrest data. Around 58% of the total runaways constitute female runaways” (Flowers, 2001, p.8). Girls mature more rapidly than boys because of genetic reasons. The emotions and feelings of a girl of 12 or 13 years old are entirely different from that of a boy of that age. Sexual hormones work vigorously at this period in females. At the same time, girls at this age may not be able to segregate between good and evil because of the over influence of sex hormones. If not cared properly, girls at this age can be easily exploited sexually by antisocial elements. Under the influence of others, such girls may runway from their home also. In some cases alcoholic influence can cause a state called black out in which the person may appear to be functioning in an alert state yet will have no recall of events that occurred. (Central Nervous System, n.d) “Blackouts represent episodes of amnesia, during which subjects are capable of participating even in salient, emotionally charged events—as well as more mundane events—that they later cannot remember “(White, 2004). Drug addiction and alcohol addiction is growing among the teenagers at present. These addictions can create some peculiar mental problems. Alcoholic blackout can affect the long term memory as well. Under normal stage brain can convert short term memories to long term memories. A person under blackout stage may not be able to convert this short term memory into long term memory as alcohol basically affects the transfer or encoding of information from short term to long term. In other words, a teenager under the influence of alcohol or drug may not be able to think properly and they may often opt for the short term goals. Thus, they may think that runaways are the option to escape from the parental control and to lead a freak life. The effects of teenage runaways are immense. It is easy to misuse the street children by the antisocial elements. Teenagers running away from their home may often take shelter in the streets. Streets on the other hand are shelters of antisocial elements. Thus runaway children normally come in the hands of the antisocial elements and they will make use of such children for their own missions like sexual misuse, robbery, violence etc. The runaway children may not have enough money in their hands. Such children may opt for robbery in order to find money of their livelihood. The future of a nation lies in the hands of the youths. If the youths fail to develop properly, the future of the nation could be in jeopardy. Runaway children often fail to continue their education. Lack of education will destroy their future chances of getting better employments and delivering contributions to the nation building process. As mentioned earlier, crime rates and violence rate may increase in a country if the runaway cases increases. The government may force to spend more money in dealing with the juvenile crime and rehabilitation process. In other words, government spending in the non productive sector would be increased as a result of increased runaways and hence the economic growth of a country could be seriously retarded because of teenage runaways. Teenage runaways often result in family problems. The parents may blame each other for their children’s runaway. They will fail to get the much needed assistance from their children when they become old. In short, teenage runaways can create lot of social, family and economical problems in a country. References 1. Central Nervous System (n.d.), Retrieved from http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/som/cmed/alcohol/lt-effect/lteffect-centralnerv.htm 2. Flowers B. R. (2001). Runaway Kids and Teenage Prostitution: America's Lost, Abandoned, and Sexually Exploited Children. Publisher: Praeger (June 30, 2001) 3. Rohr M.E. (1997). Adolescent Runaway Behavior: Who Runs and Why (Children of Poverty) Publisher: Routledge (February 1, 1997) 4. Schaffner L.Laurie Schaffner (Author) Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and "Bad Attitudes" › Visit Amazon's Laurie Schaffner PagFind all the books, read about the author, and more. Publisher: Routledge (April 28, 1999) See search results for this author Are you an author? Learn about Author Central 5. 5. White A.M., Ph.D.(2004), What Happened? Alcohol, Memory Blackouts, and the Brain Retrieved from http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-2/186-196.htm Michael E. Rohr (Author) › Visit Amazon's Michael E. Rohr Page Find all the books, read about the author, and more. 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