Everyone has seen at least one t.v. show, or movie about a child, or teen who does anything for their parents attention. Take for instance Excess Baggage, a movie.
The Star Alicia Silverstone, is a love starved teenager who fakes a kidnapping just for her rich workaholic father who in the end ends up actually being kidnapped. To bad in real life kids don't make their starvation for attention so obvious. These days most all adolescents that commit felonies have little or no relationship with their parents. I want all parents to know their kids are not helpless. They can turn their child's life around; and that giving up on your child, or kicking them out could be the worst decision of their lives. I know this statement doesn't go for everyone, but in most cases the ones who deny it have it the worst.
I can't really prove this to you unless I show you the positive side of the facts.
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Excess Baggage
Alicia Silverstone at the Sanctury Gala 2006"In a survey last year shows that, of the eldest collage freshmen, three quarters of them had done some type of volunteer work, Those freshmen said that the people they admired most were their parents"ÃÂ(Quindlen 112). Now comes the negative side. In Southern California one Halloween night a man was beaten wile his children watched wide eyed, by nine teenage boys. Theirs a twist to this story. It happened in a Coto De Caza Community that was extremely exclusive, and these boys were far from "white trash."ÃÂ "A lot of these kids aren't cared for they're just given a lot of money,"ÃÂ said an orange county psychologist (Duncan #48).
In a convent House for runaways in New York a 16 year old boy named Jerry was asked if he wanted to call his parents and tell them he was ok. He confidently replied, "My father rather give me five dollars than five minutes"ÃÂ (Duncan #48). "Stanford economist Victor Fuchs estimates that between 1960 and 1986, American children in white house holds lost an average of 10 hours of parental time per week and black children 12 hours"ÃÂ (Duncan #48). A fifteen year old named Zack writes a letter to S.W.
Harrington, Author of How to get your parents to give you everything you ever wanted, saying "Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own home. My parents Haven't got the slightest idea of who I am or what I want. I hate them both. I feel like taking off"ÃÂ (Harrington 138).
The perfect example of deprived children is those who dress as outrageous as they possibly can. Almost all of them will admit to you that they do it to get attention.
It's not always just because they want attention from their parents they might do it to get their peers attention as well. Parents usually think of these children as scary, But at least their not hurting anyone with this style of getting attention. Wile others like a few students that decided to call in bomb threats at Ottawa and Kent county Schools recently hurt so many students mentally and emotionally. People are getting tired of it. (Grand Rapids Press B2) This kids like the ones I've pointed out usually turn out to be the type to lash out on society if you look in the news, day after day you can see article after article about children hurting children or parents hurting children and that child ends up in going on a rampage. All I have left to say is children adapt, if they don't get the type of love and attention they deserve they will find it, and if that means picking up a gun and destroying the world they deep down inside love so much, then they will.
Citations Basler, Cythia Kowa."ÃÂ helping kids beat the odds."ÃÂ N.E.A. Today March 1999:1 Duncan, Glenn, Ellen. "who's minding the children?"ÃÂ salt of the earth March/April 1995: 11-16 Rpt. In Family, vol.5.Ed. Elenor C. Goldstein, Bocaraton Fl: Social Issues Regorge Series Inc.,1993.Art.48 Feildman, robert s. Understanding stress. New. York.:Venture,1992 "Juvenile Crime and Punishment."ÃÂ Current Events 4 Dec. 1998:2b-d Littmen, Margret "Generation Stressed."ÃÂ Teen April 1999:1880 "Peer Preasure."ÃÂ 48 hours. C.B.S. WWMT, Kalamazoo. 15 Aug .1997 "Second Chance."ÃÂ Dateline. NBC. Wood, Grand Rapids. 4 Aug. 1997 "Students sent home following bomb threats at two schools"ÃÂ Grand Rapids Press 22 March 2000: B2 Quindlen, Anna. Now It's Time For Generation Next Newsweek, January 1, 2000 Harrington, W. S. How To Get Your Parents To Give You Everything You've Ever Wanted New. York.: Atheneum, 1982
Duncan Patterson & Chorus
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