It is unfortunate to believe there are child and youth that struggle with feelings of depression, anxiety, antisocial tendencies and other troubling life aspects. Take a second to think back to your youth. After school did you come home to parents that were happy to see you and a home cooked meal in the process of being prepared? As an adult do you have a parent or friend that calls you during the week just to say hi and see how you are doing? Sometimes we might take these aspects of our life for granted. Youth often struggles with communication and social interaction. These aspects are a major contributing factor that can hinder decision making and behavior. Today, more than ever social media, the news, and word of mouth points our attention toward youth crime. It is hard to believe the actions behind mass shootings and suicidal tendency. The important thing to remember with crisis is knowledge and awareness are key.
One way to help understand and reduce youth crime is through rehabilitation programs, which focus on factors such as antisocial attitudes, beliefs, peer association as well as family aspects (ebook, 379). Rehabilitation programs such as MST Services provide a program intervention for high risk youth by providing a multidimensional approach in offering assistance resources based upon peers, school, family and home interaction. The MST Services is a program for extremely violent youth. Prevention and intervention programs such as MST work with youth that exhibit early signs of aggression, impulsivity, and poor social skills, students that display academic or problematic behavior, and provides techniques to strength and direction positive inductive discipline techniques (ebook, 380). The MST offers multiple programs to help build up youth and families. Some dynamics include social skills training, parent-community relationship training, time management skills, adult drug and alcohol intervention, household management and adolescent mental health services. The MST services benefit the whole family to help transform lives and prevent high risk youth from walking down troubled life paths by providing evidence-based programs (MST website)
In a 2020 article entitled The Truth About Troubled Teens, provided alarming statistic for troubled teens. The article lists statistic concerning youth and crime, teen suicide, teen pregnancy, and mental health. For the purpose of this blog I will only list the statistic associated with youth and crime, as followed: In 2013, the United States handled 1.1 million juvenile delinquency cases. More than a quarter of crimes committed by juveniles are committed by females. Almost 22,000 crimes involved weapons. Every 4 minutes a youth is arrested for an alcohol-related crime. Every 7 minutes a youth is arrested for a drug crime. The article provides a section in understanding the risks associated with the recorded statistics. The first prevention risk is knowledge in understanding the challenges many teens are struggling with on a day to day basis and provided steps to take toward prevention (Morin, 2020).
Our text conveys various components that increase the risk for crime among youth. Sociological theories discuss factors in society that could cause such tendencies. In addition, learned behaviors can develop through a person’s interactions and experience within their social environment (ebook,374). Andrews and Bonta (2016) research present eight categories of risk factors, both personal and environmental that may influence criminal behavior. Factors include emerging family factors, influence, engaged antisocial acts and peer factors, as well as temperament and poor use in leisure time (ebook 375). These factors are usually brought up during theme months within schools, where information is passed out to students, parents and faculty. Additional focus of the severity involved could help provide a better chance in reaching students and providing help where it is needed.
In understanding the complexity involved among trouble youth and the associated risk factors, we can get the edge on preventing youth toward reckless behaviors such as crime. In a school environment providing students, faculty, and parents with prevention and intervention resources can help acknowledge awareness strategies. Additional resources such as MST services can provide the individual, families, and school programs for severity troubled and aggressive youth. I often wish the everyday demands of life weren’t so difficult to manage. I feel a majority of youth issues stem from family and environmental problems. We also are in a time were communication and social interaction are often compromised. There are multiple factors involved in today’s society that could use adjusting. The first step is awareness and the second step is providing help and focus where it is needed.
References
References
Coutts Larry M.,Gruman. Jamie, Frank W. Schneider. Applied Social Psychology Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. SAGE Publications. 2016
Morin, A. (February 26, 2020). The Truth About Troubled Teens . Verywell mind, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-happening-to-our-children-2606269.
https://www.mstservices.com/
Hi. Good blog post. As a mother who had 1 of 4 children go down the wrong path, searching for some other type of acceptance and identity, and had Bipolar and other factors I have been through some of this. There is a little more to these problems than just MST. The Psychologist that does the evaluations for juveniles had attempted to recommend the MST services. I, as the parent had to cancel it out as was my right, because he had other services so it was or ended up as a duplication of services and was too much. Also to Kaikahee, it is not always contributed to “bad parenting” as I did everything I could and the schools, and even when he ended up with juvenile probation knew it. I went out of my way prior to issues to keep him in sports etc. There were so many factors that contributed to this, including an issue when I lived in a predominantly white neighborhood good schools and an issue arose that was so racist and handled so wrongly.
My son and his friend, who was a Pastor’s son, both were under an IEP for learning and my son rode a different bus to get him home, same as his friend. What was done at the school was unacceptable. The friend’s parents had money and hired one of the best lawyers in our area, and I was referred to an educational lawyer. The school district was so wrong.
There has to be fairness across the board and the profiling needs to stop. Often many of the programs youth need, states and local cities do not have funding for them. The school to prison pipeline is real. The things I observed and learned and experienced is why I am pushing to make a difference in our community and in particular deal with the juveniles and their families.
I think you bring up some good points that are sadly, very often overlooked. Caring for our youth properly and being attentive to their needs and mental health is absolutely essential.
Firstly, In my blunt honesty, many of these issues I believe stem from lack of good parenting, which in many cases is a result of poor family planning which can root back to not being properly educated about how to go about the whole process. Between that and social media, children and young people are more disconnected than they used to be. When I was young, I used to play outside all day almost everyday with my neighborhood friends; so I was able to develop and cultivate social skills. I think, as long as not being influenced by the wrong people, interaction with others can be key in the reduction of youth self-harm and negative behavior.
Secondly, I think parents need to get more involved in their kids lives. Alluding to your question in the beginning, many children come home to and empty house, grab a snack and hop on the computer, flip on the TV or play on their phone. Thereby distancing themselves from others; especially if parents allow this behavior to happen unchecked. Connecting and communicating with youth (teens especially) is difficult enough as it is. Sometimes understanding and care is what’s needed rather than just discipline – although proper discipline is of the utmost importance when it comes to children growing and developing into respectful, mature young adults and adults later. These types of things are preventative.
As far as addressing problematic areas, like when it is discovered that a young person is involved in drug usage, underage drinking, bullying / being bullied or showing signs of mental health issues, as you mentioned above, the proper programs such as MST or ARISE are definitely essential. Many of the underlying reasons young people tend to lash out and exhibit violent, erratic and destructive behavior is largely due to the fact that they feel misunderstood, unloved, not accepted or feel that showing signs of emotion is a form of weakness. These issues also have a lot to do with self-development, self-worth, sexual frustration, familial interaction, learned negative behavior and the desire to mature too rapidly. That last one mainly is by the influence of societal norms and standards the tell people what they should do and be and if you’re anywhere outside of those social parameters, you’re a social outcast. This can be confusing for a young mind. Creating programs that are relatable is detrimental to the effectiveness of such programs. Youth who commit crimes are often in and out of the system because too often, depending on the location, there aren’t enough or any measures taken to prevent them from engaging in negative behavioral patterns. Thus resulting in the system effectively failing them and giving up on these young folks which can have lasting consequences into adulthood.
The big hurdle here is many of these programs of services tend to be privately funded and generally the funding isn’t overwhelmingly large so the impact is too small, too far away, or too out of touch for youth to really care. Government sanctioned services are often stigmatized and the social workers typically care less than the attendees. Additionally, many times once a young person is entered into such a program, specifically by their parents, that young person may read into it as “you have a problem, I give up trying to help you”; which may or may not be true. Love and compassion is always the best way to tell a person they’re being enrolled into any kind of service (at any age really). Understanding won’t come right away in most cases but if the service or program is good and the workers are passionate and actually care about healing and treatment, young people will come to the understanding that it’s what was best for them.
References:
Evidence-Based Life Skills Lessons and Professional Staff Training by the ARISE Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved March 8, 2020, from https://at-riskyouth.org/