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The Influence Of Socioeconomic Status And Peer Pressure On Adolescents’ Behavioural Patterns
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Adolescence is an extremely difficult period when
the individual goes through various physical and mental changes.
Children and young adults go through a lot of stress (Fontana, David and
Slack, Ingrid, 1997). The pressure of school, meeting expectations of
parents and teachers and planning out a career for themselves puts them
under considerable strain and tension. These conditions are more often
imposed upon them by adults. Added to this is the adolescents’
experience of its own intense feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, love,
disappointment and anger. Relationships with friends are of utmost
importance and success or failure in these interactions weighs heavily
on them. They have to go through formal education in these formative
years and at the same time need to develop their self-confidence and a
sense of personal identity.
Recognizing the nature and strength of
these pressures allows us to appreciate that stress; neuroses,
unhappiness and depression are by no means the prerogative of adults.
Unfortunately, little is done with formal education to help adolescents
learn to understand themselves, to control their anxieties and their
thought processes, and to discover tranquility, harmony and balance
within themselves. Little is done to help them manage their own inner
lives, to use their mental energies productively instead of dissipating
it in worries and random thinking and to access the creative levels of
their own minds. A lack of education in mind training at this stage has
resulted in most adolescents developing bad mental habits. Often their
minds are turmoil of excitements, hopes, expectations, anxieties and
fantasies.
The rate of depression among adolescents is typically
high. Their mood swings lead to agonizing periods of self-doubt.
Virtually at no other time in life is there more a need for a mind
training that, without denying or seeking to judge or repress a single
feeling or emotion, can settle the individual into calm and relaxed
state.Thus, the present study is designed to examine the influence of
socioeconomic status and peer pressure on adolescents’ behavioural
patterns in Lagos Metropolis.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
It
has become a common phenomenon to read, hear or witness incidences of
change in adolescent and enthusiasm for delinquent acts such as alcohol
intake, drug abuse, rape, prostitution, sexual perversion, stealing,
cultism, adolescent suicide, school dropout and all kinds of wanton
misdemeanor which has become a problem in our sour societies and homes.
However,
adolescents behaviours are differ from each other, there are patterns
which they follow, the causes of negative behaviours are parental
socioeconomic status of adolescents and peer pressure. Both school and
home environments play an important role in adolescents’ behavioural
pattern, negative peer influences, lack of attachment to school
personnel (e.g., teachers, nurses), poor school achievement and
attainments, and cognitive or learning difficulties. It’s sad to say
that these behaviours and social problems like truancy, school dropout,
depression, fighting and aggression have patterns are unfortunately
fallout of the social ills in the society. It is the society or our
environment that creates severe poverty, homelessness and economic
hardships.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 5]
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