Many stressful situations in daily life may result in hasty decisions and patterns of behavior such as an assault, theft, aggression, substance abuse, suicide, etc. It should be noticed that such segment of society as teenagers is the most vulnerable to these actions and behaviors. There are many different grounds for these behaviors, but they all are connected with social issues; if youth doesn’t find support to deal with them, it may cause serious consequences. In this paper I want to discuss reasons that lead to such kinds of behavior among adolescents. These reasons include runaway, suicide, delinquency, eating disorders, and give a response to a few questions about them.
Runaways and Throwaways
The most common action-out behavior between young people is runaways. Researches show that every seventh teenager will run away before his or her adulthood. The most common reasons for this tendency are troubles in family or at school. In other words, kids cannot withstand social pressure. So, there are two primary classes of runaways: transient runaways and intent runaways. Transient runaway term is applied for individual who leaves rashly and does not stay away for more than a couple of hours or a few days. For example, more common representatives of this type of runaway are teens who are afraid to be punished or beaten due to their bad grades or because of any similar mistakes. Unlike the transient one, intent runaways seriously thought over and weighed their decision to leave, and they leave for much longer than transients do: if not forever, then for years. However, these two classes have one similar feature: they both signal about troubles in their families. If no action will be taken, it may cause more terrifying consequences. There are six common reasons to run away that describe possible outcomes.
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According to Rotheram-Borus and her colleagues (1996) there are six following reasons:
Child may be deserted by parents due to divorce or death of one of them;
The parents can’t or do not want to perceive the homosexuality of their child;
Being physically or sexually abused by one of the family members;
Existing substance abuse problem;
Present long-standing mental disorder;
Other reasons.
After identifying these reasons, there is an increased necessity to describe throwaway term. It is applied to the child who was encouraged or forced to leave home by own parents, or even been thrown out. It is worth mentioning that a rather small number of adolescent runaway due to the glamorous vision of life on the street.
Eating Disorders and Delinquency among Adolescents
Eating Disorders
Life on the street is extremely difficult, and not many people can survive on the street. This lifestyle may cause many negative effects to a physical and psychical health. One of the samples of physical troubles is eating disorder. However, not only people who live on the street may become a victim of these disorders. Due to the existing stereotypes about physical attraction many adolescent girls start losing their weight intensively. A wrong and inexperienced approach to diet and nutrition in general may cause different eating disorders. There are two main problems: Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia.
Anorexia Nervosa is an emotional eating disorder that could be best characterized as an obsession with food and weight loss. In other words, it looks like a fixed idea to be slim. It may develop if individual performs an extreme approach to the weight loss. Anorexia Nervosa could be diagnosed when person’s weight is less than 15% of normal body weight regarding to his or her personal height and constitution. Also, researches show that girls are more exposed to this disease. To be more specific, 90 to 95% of anorexics are females aged between 12 and 18.
Bulimia is an eating disorder which is explained by the binge-purge syndrome. A person who suffers from this disorder consumes big amount of high-calorie food in a short period of time. Bulimia could be diagnosed to a person who experienced repeated episodes of uncontrolled overeating. However, Bulimia, just like Anorexia Nervosa, is more female disease than male – only 10% of males suffer from bulimia.
Juvenile Delinquency
That is clear that life on the street is difficult, and many homeless or runaways may face that kind of situation, when they don’t have money to buy food. This and many similar situations may lead to theft and robbery. Also many social aspects could force youth to break the law. So, Juvenile Delinquent is the juvenile (juvenile term fits everyone who is under 18) who violates the law. There are many causes for these activities, and they are often grouped into three main categories:
Environmental causes;
Interpersonal causes;
Personal causes.
Environmental causes are based on environment in which juvenile lives. Such factors like availability of drugs, high-crime area, poorness, exposure of media violence, presence of gangs, and other could increase the amount of offences.
Interpersonal causes refer to the relationship of a teen with his or her family and with society in general. Lack of attention and control over juvenile behavior, as well as influence of the peers who are tied with crime, can lead to the teen’s decision to join the gang and following delinquency. Also, physical abuse and aggression in family are the most common causes for develop of adolescent crime.
Personal causes are related to personal wishes and factors. Flourishing of social life occurs precisely during the adolescence period, and it often causes the necessity to rivalry in order to gain authority and look like defiant and reckless person.
Suicide among Adolescents
Suicide is the most terrifying and important theme to discuss. It occupies third place in the list of adolescent deaths. Statistics shows that girls more often try to kill themselves, but boys more often conduct suicide. But what are the main causes and motives to make such decision?
Most common cause of suicide is a depression, of course. This is a psychological disorder that is characterized by the uncontrolled sadness, hopelessness, and helplessness. Family relationships play one of the most crucial roles in this decision. It is the second factor which causes high suicide rates among adolescents. Poor parent-child connection may be the reason for suicidal behaviors. Also, except for these two factors there are few additional events and conditions that often lead to a suicide or at least an attempt to conduct it. Those are substance abuse, isolation from society, death of family member, close friend funeral, or lover’s death. Moreover, loss of job, home, or even social status might be a clue. Adolescents who have been raped also fall under suicide zone of risk. Often, a threat of suicide is an efficient way for adolescents to draw family’s or society’s attention.
Conclusion
Life in society has never been easy due to the uncountable factors; it may lead to hasty decisions and terrifying consequences. However, strong family support and adequate approach to upbringing and education can prevent these adverse outcomes. In particular, it concerns the theme of suicide. Only mutual trust, support and understanding may prevent such conditions as depression and decisions like substance abuse, violating the laws, and runaways.
