Point The Finger at Who?

I have an insatiable desire to unearth the problem with under achieving that is set as an anchor on the backs of so many young Americans. Each time I thumb throw a book or hear a commentary on the television, my engine revs up at high idle. Another kid goes to jail, another kid gets pregnant, another kid physically assaults teacher, and another kid fatally wounded, My argument comes at a time when the economy has tanked. There is much talk and speculation that today looks like some of those gloomy days when soup lines were a saving grace. People with satisfactory jobs and skills to match are finding themselves in crunch time. This has to be even more of a daunting task for youths entering early adulthood who do not have a job, yet. Teenagers are becoming young adults despite the decline in the economy. Those that are ill equipped to nudge their way into everyday living only stand to be trampled in self pity.

Wherever life begins is the starting point to accept responsibility for how your children turns out in life. Sadly, this does not happen but in a few cases. When you miss your opportunity to effectively bestow upon your offspring the tools that it takes to be a strong individual force in society, then it becomes s societal problem to force feed your children what they don’t want to know. Society has allowed too many mothers and fathers to parent through default. These parents in many instances are overlooked and given credit for doing work with children they do not have a right to lay claim. When you look further into parenting through default, you actually see the make up in a household range from one to four children. The dynamics can be perplexing and misread, and often are in many families. In a household of four children where three children are doing well and one child is exhibiting behavior problems the quick read is the child’s the problem. The mother remains in the driver’s seat. Conversely, in a household with the same dynamics but the situation is two and two, you generally find the mother taking credit for the positive acting children.

So, are parents the problem with their children’s underachieving in life? Is the government (proxy) responsible for the underachievement of our children? Or, shall we cast the blame to the teachers? When it comes to accepting responsibility for the oppression cast upon young adults no one wants to stand up and say it is my fault. Whether there is one parent or two parents in the home or involved with the child, does your child have the basic ability to perform these three simple tasks: read to comprehend, do arithmetic, and comprehend English? Ironically, children entering eighteen-years-old or high school completion can not read or write logically and comprehendingly. A lot of energy is wasted in my opinion over whether adequate money is allocated to upgrade schools and supplies. If this money does not reach its target audience then it will be said that is why there is a problem in closing the achievement gap. Simply, the children can not read the books they have. Hello! LOL! The avenue on the surface that would suggest the most traction in improving children’s productivity in life would be the parent (s).

A part of learning is conditioning. Parents have a huge part in programming children’s behavior. The preconditioning a child gets before he or she goes to school can be the charge that diminishes the learning curve. Early intervention is a combined campaign where the parent and the government unify to form the onset in child’s life to nurture the developmental growth and learning needed to succeed. Teachers can teach and be effective when parents and their children are in tune. The school administration is not the community parenting association. They are ineffective when they have to parent and teach.

Poverty in Early Adulthood

I have had the good fortunes of traversing the globe and seeing daily family struggles from a variety of angles. The one constant thing I see across America is the lack of emphasis placed on child development. Yes! The expectations set for most children is either non existence or meekly low. As recently as the day of this entry, I had a co-worker openly share that she was confronted with a teenager who dropped out of school in the sixth-grade. When he dropped out of school, he related that school interfered with his being a big time thug. This young man has just recently turned eighteen-years-old and does not have motivation to redress the issues that led him to his present predicament. He has joined many others in his peer group who have thrown in the towels to having a better life.

My motivation for exploring this topic grew when I heard that the high schools in the city I live were deemed manufacturers of school dropouts. There is enough blame to go around as to why children are not firmly given concrete family support from birth to adulthood. When you live in a world where grandparents earn their designation at twenty-nine years old, then you have to ponder. In addition, the age of conception is continuing to be lowered with far too many twelve and thirteen year olds given birth. I have no earthly idea who is the head of household in many of these instances. Children should have an opportunity to be children and to know that they are going to receive love and support. A big part that love has to be tough love that reinforces a commitment to high expectations. When you observe families in your neighborhoods you can immediately identify the parents who parent through default. Simply, the good child is mines and the bad child is yours, but neither one has put forth effort in both situations.

Poverty In Early Adulthood

I try to approach the art of growing up and maturing from a common sense aspect. Parents are engaged and in tuned with their children from birth to adulthood. If this is the simple formula for parenting, then why are so many kids not prepared when they enter adulthood? Simply remembering how my friends, my neighbors, and my family members struggled with the concept of earning decent money, I find myself curiously interested in unwinding the myth that the shackles of poverty can not be broken. There have been some startling statistics thrown around that ten percent of minority teenagers entering early adulthood will never go to college. This percentage has been tossed around as though it is a guarantee. Thus, what is more scary is the rate minorities continue to volunteer for incarceration. Many of them are under educated and have no vocational training. There appear to be an enormous anvil thrust upon children enduring poverty stricken upbringing. Furthermore, this inanimate object sees the blame cast on anyone regarding what causes the problem and what it takes to remedy it. Are children deprived of quality parenting, schooling, job training, and role modeling to compete in this ever evolving world?

Children born into poverty generally remain there throughout the better part of their lives, or so it seems. Considering that poverty has been involuntarily nominated the root cause of what prohibits a person from achieving his or her optimal best, we can see why the some communities are fixated on public handouts. Children are continuously being born to unwed and teenage mothers who in large part are not equipped to handle the rigors of such a responsibility. This unto itself is a disaster recipe for raising children and ensuring these children get the nourishment and guidance needed to be competitive in society. The alarming rate that children are inheriting their poor life gifts from mothers and distant fathers are saddening. In America we have the practically the same problems with the rich and poor and educated and uneducated. The same can be said for teen pregnancy, unwed pregnancy, crime, and incarceration. There is a consensus for many problems that identify the poor. I am amazed that underprivileged people continue to languish behind the door frame of poverty when the key has been designed and issued.