Dear all,

The topic for my speech is "Parents should give thier teenage children more control". There are many issues concerning teenages struggling wth this issue, and I will address them to you.

Everyone has been in thier teenage years before, and many people look at it from different perspective. Some think that freedom is essential during this period of time but others think that parents should control them as the teenage years are the period where it moulds ones character. There have been many cases of teenagers running away from home and this reflects thier relationship with the family. This can be caused by miscommunitcation or less control over the teenager.

As a teenager, it is understandable that they want more freedom and less control from parents. Parents want to have more control over thier child due to certain reasons. Firstly, if the parents do not have enough control over the child, the child might be led astray by thier friends. I, myself, also agree that people at our age is very prone to succumb to peer pressure. As a result, parents should communicate more with thier child to find out about the problems that they are facing in school. Because of this, parents enforce rules on them, for example, curfews so as to reduce the chances of them getting led astray. Secondly, teenagers spend thier money without thinking much because they are not earning it on thier own. To control thier expenditure, parents normally give fixed allowance and if the teenager needs more money, they have to "appy" to thier parents for it. All these may lead to tension between the teeangers and parents if the teenagers find it overbearing. Too much control will drive these teenagers to the wall and if they cannt accept it, they might just commit suicide.

This is why parents should give thier teenage children more freedom so as to allow them to make thier own decisions and suffer the consequences of thier mistakes. Also, by doing this, teenagers will feel the trust of their parents in them and will do more to the parents' bidding. Life is about making decisions and the decision making process during the teenage days prepares teenagers for greater challenges as life goes in. The child should also get thier own private space, for example thier own computers or room. This private space should not be invaded by parents. Another example of which parents should let thier child decide is thier education process. The child should be given a chance to choose thier own schools instead of parents telling them where to go. A student may want to go to a Polytechnic but his/her parents think that going to a JC is better because it is more prestigious than a Polytechnic. Those over-caring parents do everything for thier child, from cleaning thier rooms to tying the shoelaces of their child. This way, the child will not have any chance to learn to be independent and will rely on thier parents for everything. Thus, letting the child do their daily chores helps them to cultivate thier life-skills.

I have seen many incidences where the child is so dependent on thier parents that they cannot survive without thier parents around. For example, on the first day of school, some students(even at age 14) will hug thier parents and cry. This is a common scenario where the child are not used to leaving thier parents for a short while. Camps is also another example to show the teenager's dependance on the parents. They cannot do many things because they are not trained to do so. So, I must emphasis the need to give teenagers more control over thier own life.

Pampering a child might not be bad, but they will not treasure what they have because it is given to them and they never spend an effort in earning it. As they grow up, they will not cherish it until they lose it and this is bad for thier upbringing.

To conclude, I hereby urge all parents to give thier child more control over thier own life.

Thank you.