Challenges for Young People Growing Up in the 21st Century

Topic
What are the challenges for young people growing up these days?

Introduction
Today we shall be looking into the challenges that do face youths as they are growing up in the
21st century. We shall be able to carry out in three main themes which are
1. Youths and the way they are brought up.
2. Growing up in a challenging world
3. The ever-changing world
We shall be able to see how these three factors have influenced the growth of the youth and how
they influence the lives of the youths.
1. Youths and the way they are brought up.
Growing up in the modern world has proved to be challenging to most of the youths. This is due
to lack of parental presence in the family who would always offer the required guidance. Parents
forms the basis of knowledge to the kids since they are the very only figure who have been by
their side as they have been growing up, as such they develop a special bond towards them and
are ready to listen to their instructions. According to Bailey (2011) parents on the other side have
to sacrifice a lot for these kids right away from birth until they are adults let’s say the age of 21
where they can be completely independent and able to provide for themselves. Since the kids
requires a lot of attention and care, which cannot be provided by just staying in the house,
parents are always on lookout for jobs of which some of these jobs demands a lot of time which
makes parents to loss grips with their kids and are in darkness of what is going on in their life
whenever they are out of their sight. At school, some kids are faced with challenges in making
decisions by their own after they realize of the difference in the background and social class as
compared to their peers.
Some of the kids are handled with much care and offered better living conditions as they are
provided with everything luxurious life that they need which at times tends to be too hot to be
able to hold. This may turn out messy to the kids who would end up spoiling themselves with
bad company and drug addicts (Pearce 2005). The other class is the class poor background kids.
They are motivated by a phrase of a better future but lives in anguish poverty and at times they
go hungry and have to be contented with tattered clothes which psychologically torments them

(Field 2010). Finally, we have the middle-class families who doesn’t lack neither do they have a
lot in store. They just live the moment but with hope that tomorrow will be better that today.
2. Growing up in a challenging world
The 21st youth generation faces lots of challenges as compared to the previous generations. They
are faced with lots of dilemma and difficult situation in their day to day activities. Some of these
challenges include;
Technological changes: Technology have brought with it good things as well as bad vices.
Introduction of robots and mechanization of industries have eaten up lots of job slots that could
have been otherwise been for the unskilled youth. on the blighter side, it has also opened up
other job opportunities but only for those who are educated, as such, quench for education has
increased for a person to place him/herself among the top cream who fill those minimum white
color job slots. On the other side, according to Frost (2006) availability of internet and
smartphones has created lots of introvert’s youths. They find gadgets easy to interact with
creating themselves a world of their own where they feel comfortable without being disturbed
which they refer to it as “nagging”. This has widened the gap between the parent and the child
souring the family relationship. You can imagine a situation whereby a parent comes home from
work in the evening after being out the whole day only to come and find his/her kid on a smart
phone, upon arrival, the kid goes and locks him/herself in the room. In that case, there will be no
communication between the parents and the kids.
Demographic change: Brought about by disintegration of tradition culture in which kids
belonged to the society. When a kid was found on wrong, anybody older was right to punish the
kid. In today set-up, there are rights that protects children from being “caned” and only need to
be “talked” to. It is understandable that the right helps in minimizing cases pertaining corporal
punishment but at the same time kids need to be disciplined at some instance. This has brought
about the feeling of “I don’t care” among youths and only heeds to the advices from their peers,