Essay On Parenting Adolescents

Social media have made our life more interesting and brighter. On the other hand, they pose a lot of problems. In this paper we are to analyze opinions of Nicole and Scott on the matter.
1. According to Nicole’s opinion, social provided a ‘window’ onto the world, a window we can use for educational purposes. On the other hand, Nicole points out that social media are voracious consumers of time. Adolescents tend to quit their studies, give up their favorite sport or game for the dubious benefit of sitting in front of the computer and wasting their precious hours. To make it worse, there is an increasing evidence that ‘computer lifestyle’ is largely unhealthy and leads to deterioration of eyesight, nervous breakdowns or even heart diseases as the result of sedentary lifestyle.
Scott maintains that there is no wonder parents are worried. Some of them state educational, communication, etc. benefits but they are justifiably afraid of their children getting hooked up.
2. Nicole claims that adolescents of today, it goes without saying, are experiencing a lot of stress. Some of it is caused by school and interaction with friends for school has become much more difficult than it used to be a dozen years ago. And yet some of the stress adolescents come across is caused largely by their excessive use of social media and their unwillingness to reduce stress by more natural way – for example, by doing some exercise. She says that much of the stress is also caused by changes that adolescents go through– physical and mental ones and exercise can really help.
Scott believes that nature of stress is behavioral. Citing some scholarly articles, he goes on to discover and study the nature underlying adolescents’ storminess and emotional instability.
3. Nicole writes that some parents see it essential to give a good example for their children and, thus, they are willing to give TV or computer themselves. For instance so do Nicole’s parents. Her parents can ‘tear their children off screens’ by setting an example of taking up healthy lifestyle, doing sport, etc.
Scott, on the other hand, believes that parents should provide support. It is the most important thing, according to him: parents should listen to a child, cater to his needs, they should be attentive and always considerate.
4. Scott writes that there are different kinds of bullying children might face: verbal, psychological, physical, cyber bullying. Actually, according to him, many states in the USA have introduced very well defined laws against bullying and yet it is still such a personal issue for many of adolescents are unlikely to report bullying.
Nicole writes about laws that were adopted in her state against bullying but she thinks that much more can be done. For example, everybody should report bullying immediately.