TEXT 4. Young people’s problems

Everybody says your youth is probably the best time of young life, because being young means romance, love, new discoveries and so on. But it is also the most difficult time because you have to make some very important decisions, which will influence all your future life.

Things are not easy nowadays even for adults, but for teenagers, who have to find their own place in society, it’s very difficult. It’s necessary not only to adapt to your society, but also to be confident about your position at any time.

One of the actual youth problems is hardness to get an education. A lot of young people think that education is inaccessible because of lack of money. They would like to get higher education, but it could be very difficult to enter the university or very expensive. And even if you are studying, you need money of your own to pay for extra clothes, tapes, and books.

For future it is essential to have a good job. If young people leaving secondary school don’t want to study any more, they should choose a job straight way.

Unemployment is another great problem among youth. Difficulty which young people face is to find a good job after graduation. It is hard to find a well paid job, you must have connections everywhere. Young people are discriminated against when they seek a job, for they are inexperienced. It is also hard to find a job according to your qualifications, good jobs are hard to come by. Problem of unemployment leads to material problem. Young people have to pay for everything, they have needs, but they don't have enough money.

The housing problem is still unsolved. Usually young people have no chance to buy or to rent an apartment because of soaring of real estate prices. No housing and no hopes to get it. Lack of your own dwelling prevents to create young families.

Emotional problems for young people can be far more difficult than financial ones. Today young people are under many types of stress. Peer pressure, changing family conditions, mobility of families and unemployment are just a few reasons why some young people may try to escape reality by turning to alcohol or drugs. Alcoholism and drug-addiction is a relatively new problem but it is becoming more and more dangerous. Millions of young people today are using drugs. Usually they want just to try it, starting with light drugs like marijuana. Then they can’t stop. Drug-addiction is a disease. Drug and alcohol consumption can destroy individual’s life. Another problem is alcoholism. The reason, some people suppose, is that vodka, beer, wine are easily available and inexpensive. Early alcoholism is caused by beer-addiction. Smoking is also a big problem among adolescents. Aside from drug and alcohol abuse, another problem of youth is pregnancy among young women. The number of sexually active teens is increasing today.

Family problems appear in families where there is not enough love and warmth. Lack of attention from parents results in conflicts with children. Problem is also a generation gap. Every new generation is different from the one that preceded it. Today the differences are especially considerable. The adults always believe that they know best only because of their greater life experience. They don't want their values to be doubted. The young, on the other hand, are questioning the assumptions of the adults, they suspect that the world created by their parents was not the best one.

Young people often run away from home. Most return after a few days or a few weeks, but a few turn to crime and become juvenile delinquents. Why are young people committing crimes? Among the causes are poor family relationships, bad neighborhood conditions, peer pressure and sometimes drug addiction.

For some teenagers the pressure can become very painful and overwhelming. The stress of being young is often not understood or even recognized, and that can make a person feel alone and isolated. Because problems are being confronted for the first time, they can appear huge and impossible to solve. These feelings can make a teenager very vulnerable to thoughts of suicide. Suicide can appear to be an impulsive act. But it’s a complicated process, and a person may think about it for some time before taking action. No one can solve another person’s problems. But sympathy and support can help a suicidal person see a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

Lev Tolstoy said: “All families are happy in the similar way and unhappy in its own way”. Of course, happiness or unhappiness of any family mostly depends on relations in it. And so many families, so many family relations. Each family establishes its own relations in its own way. It has its own traditions and customs and its own unwritten constitution including rights and duties of every member of the family. The level of democracy is also different in different families, which mostly depends on the viewpoints of adults usually not coinciding with a child’s point of view. So the problem of misunderstanding becomes urgent. Some people call it generation gap. Both sides (parents and children) should be patient and tactful, and it’s the only way to settle down all the problems and stay friends.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 3082