According to the report, there are teenagers involved in killings and they just shoot the other young man without any reason. It is as if, they are playing God and they have no fear to kill any other person. How awful it is in these last days.
Are there still any reasons to be safe in today’s society where even our young people are capable of these heinous crimes?
Are there any reasons to deal with bad behaviour of our teens in today’s present society?
Who is the culprit of these bad behaviours?
The Apostle Paul warns us that in the last days, people will be lovers of themselves. Indeed this is very true. Recent local television reported again another shooting where the involved persons are young people.
All the problems of the society are interconnected. We cannot alone blame the government although they should give proper sanctions for these incidents involving teen related crimes. Moreover, we should examine the existing family relationships in our society.
To deal with the bad behaviours of teens today, we should take a look at the background of the family.
Why?
The family is the basic unit of our society! To solve this problem the immediate family member should act and do the following:
Proper training
The Bible gave us a principle to follow to ‘train a child in a way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it’. Proverbs 22:6
If the parents failed to do this and have not trained their children in the proper way that is acceptable to our society and to the laws of God (not to kill).
Ultimately, the immediate family members will reap what they have sowed. In short, the bad behaviour of teen will reflect the family itself. Definitely, the family is the immediate culprit of the bad behaviours in the society and the government should also help in molding a good family.
Some people might argue but this is true.
The immediate remedy for this behavioural problem of our teens today is the responsibility of parents.
Parents avoid embitterment to your children
Parents must be strict in their disciplinary actions towards their children and they should not make their children mad at them. The Bible writer put it this way, ‘Father, do not embitter your children or they will become discourage’ Colossians 3:21.
This is not to say that your teenager should be followed, but you need also to respect their rights as a human being.
Parents should not only listen, but should seek first to understand the needs of their children so that they will not resort to look for advice from their peer group which can have a bad influence to them.
Open communication
Open communication between parent and the youth should be present in the family. Parent should often talk to their children and should give special attention to them. I said attention, not money. Money alone will aggravate the problem of bad behaviour, but love with undivided attention ceases the problem.
Stephen Covey a famous author once said that the problems with most parents in giving advices to their children is that parents are just talking about their past to relate to their children which is not so.
This has blocked the channel to open up the problem of the teen, instead the parent should seek first to understand the problem of the teen. Meaning to listen and diagnose first before judging what the teen has done.
Past experiences is NOT a good model
Parents should avoid the autobiographical responses such as ‘this is what we were before, we always do it like this in our time, and you know what son/daughter we are not like you teenagers today’.
The above responses will block the communication and will hinder to pacify the bad behaviour of your teen.
In giving advice, parents should put themselves into the situation of the teen and not (I said NOT) to their (your) own personal past experiences. If parents do this, then the consequences of bad behaviour of the teens today will surely be reduced.
Everyone needs attention, especially for a teen ager, if they cannot get it from their family, they will get that attention from the society. Let us just hope that the teen will do good to attract attention, or otherwise, bad behaviour resulting from miscommunication and wrong training from family will be a way for the notoriety in the society.
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