Teen Life
Teenagers’ lack of respect for adults
Monday, October 18, 2010 at 12:34 by PD
Natalie Qabazard, Ursuline High School senior
By NATALIE QABAZARD URSULINE HIGH SCHOOL, SENIOR, 15
In contemporary America, it seems as though more and more teenagers are inclined to act disrespectfully toward adults. The notion that the youth must respect their elders has completely vanished. What has replaced this attitude is a sense of disobedience, noncompliance and rudeness. Some contributors include the lack of discipline from parents, the mimicking of friends’ attitudes toward adults and how the media portrays disrespectful teenagers as being hip. Modern families contain parents who are more driven and focused on their careers and less focused on the success of their family. According to essortment.com, “Becoming a teenager brings with it a host of new emotions, attitudes and behaviors. As kids age 13 to 19 move from childhood to maturity, they often experiment with language to express their boundaries and talk back to parents in ways that are inappropriate. It then becomes the parents’ duty to instruct their children how to speak with respect to authorities.” The problem arises when parents fail to teach their children the correct way of behaving toward adults. Once threats are made, the parents back down and the teenager feels powerful. Now, the teenager has control over the parent, causing the parent to feel weak and powerless. Now more than ever, teens are mimicking the disrespectful and disobedient attitude, which their friends exhibit at school. This can mainly be seen between a student and a teacher. The same attitude that is being used toward parents is used against school officials. Schools should enforce more disciplinary action against these rude teens so as to make them pay for their lack of respect. As teenagers go about their daily lives, they observe others being rude to their friends and their parents, so they in turn do the same. The amount of peer pressure is increasing; therefore, it results in conforming to their peers’ expectations. The media portrays disrespectful teenagers as being “cool” and therefore has contributed to this epidemic. We see more and more disrespectful teenagers on TV because it is entertaining to watch. However, this should not be at the expense of our future society’s behavior. On the popular reality show “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” spoiled adolescent girls treat their parents with a lack of respect in order to get what they want. It is apparent, in this TV show, that the parents of these 16-year-olds only care about buying their children happiness when, in fact, the child feeds off of this carelessness and would like to take the power away from the parents and bring it upon themselves. By televising such acts, it is promoting these behaviors, hence more of it. Teenagers must end this form of verbal abuse because if this behavior persists, America will form into a country filled with insolence. How would the remainder of the world esteem America if the president was arrogant, rude and disrespectful? America is known for its stature as a nation, filled with kind and respectful people. However, with the way that our generation proceeds into the future, that stature will likely plummet.