IELTS Essay: Bad Parenting

A freelance contribution from overseas

by Jeenn Lee Hsieh

for www.ieltschn.com

"If children behave badly, should their parents accept responsibility and be also punished?"

Bad parenting often brings about bad results: children behaving badly.  Although many problems of juvenile delinquency are likely to end nowhere, they almost always start at home.  The argument that teenagers, confused and with immature minds, are by law excused from punishment, should not mean sparing adults from any sort of responsibility.  It is worth examining the cause, effect and possible solution in the social and judicial context.

Various factors may contribute to juvenile delinquency.  It seems that all at once every sector has its share of responsibility, with the ironic exception of teenagers themselves.  To avert the rising tide of crimes committed by youth, organizations concerned have joined forces, clearly leaving parents of evil-doers far behind.  More often than not, futile efforts have been made by government units, social assistance agencies, psychology experts, sports groups, courts, churches and what not.  Unfortunately, most parents are sometimes not even aware of what children are hiding, let alone seeing to it that kids are doing all right.  Furthermore, the current judicial system provides special status and treatment for young offenders.  Identities of juvenile delinquents as well as of their parents are protected and records are barred from public view.  In short, that comes to near immunity.

Parents are of course to blame, at least in part, for the dreadful consequences of juvenile crimes.  A basic question is how a teenager becomes a delinquent?  Some such parents appear to be as puzzled and immature as their kids going astray.  They fail to tell whether teenaged boys and girls "have" problems or "are" problems.  No wonder that some parents are not ready to believe their children capable of getting trouble with the law. Accordingly, a vicious circle follows endlessly in society.

In view of the common cause and effect about juvenile delinquency, it is only too logical to hold parents accountable for the wrongs done by their sons and daughters.  While it is true that criminalizing parents is not the best thing to do, one may as well think that it should be a natural job for parents to train children the right way.  Parents certainly have their share of moral, if not legal responsibility from beginning to end.  They should be obliged to pay a certain price for damage done by their children to society.  First thing first.  Let their names be known to show what kind of parents they are!