5. Exposition Is poor parenting the root cause of the many socio- economic problems in society?

Jamaica is faced with several social problems because of large amount of juvenile delinquents
that live there. Whitney Houston stated in one of her most revered songs that the children are
the future but if these many juvenile delinquents are the future, then the future of Jamaica does
not look bright. It is said that many parents in Jamaica have failed to instill proper values in their
children from a tender age and now many of these children have grown up to become
unproductive members of society; engaging in counter-productive activities; but how accurate is
this statement? This dilemma faces the country of Jamaica to a great extent; leading Psychologist
like DrLeahcim Semaj and other sociologist; to look into the ill-effects of poor parenting;
however others social scientist like Cody Kula are now claiming that a increasing amount of
delinquents are those coming from good families with strict parents who love and care for them;
so what could be the root cause of a problem that so desperately needs solving? As a young
person the problem of juvenile delinquency worries me deeply, as children some whom who
have not even left high school as yet are now terrorizing our society, putting the noble name of
Jamaica into disrepute. The country of Jamaica is plagued with the problem of crime and
violence; many homes of our nation are nurturing criminal and individuals with serious
behavioral problems. These social problems according to Dr Leahcim Semaj can be linked to
poor parenting, he stated at forum, held at the Jamaica Observers North Street, central Kingston
offices.
6. "In Jamaica, a lot of persons go straight from childhood to parenting," he said, noting that
more than three-quarters of children in the country are born to couples who will not have a longterm relationship. Many Jamaican children dont even know their puppa (father)," he added,
also noting the continued absence of the fathers name from the childrens birth certificates. He
said people who take on parenting responsibilities in many cases cannot provide for themselves,
let alone a child."Our society is just totally short of what is required for parenting," he said. "Just
because afertile man and a fertile woman get together and breed, that dont make you a parent!"
heexclaimed. However Dr Semaj himself stated that parenting today is growing more
increasinglydifficult, taking into consideration the large amount of external negative influences
thatsometimes affect our children, he said "Parenting is about moving children towards prosocialactivities and to a large extent the media in Jamaica supports antisocial behaviour in
Jamaica,"he commented ."What parents had to compete with 20 or 30 years ago, the average
parentcannot compete with what the media influence is now." So is Dr Semaj being too
judgmental ofthe parents of juvenile delinquents. Some parents of the delinquents are in many
instances those who really try to make the bestof a bad situation and try to instill proper values in
their child but their efforts somehow provefutile. An article published on Yahoos contributor
network, on the Nov 8, 2006 by Journalist,CodyKulla she expressed her views, that poor
parenting was not main reason for rising rate ofjuvenile delinquency; she said in the article I
believe that ones social class play a big part inhis or her behaviour. Being in a low social class, it
is obvious that these people are not equippedwith the same opportunities as the rest of us. They
are just making it by and they are not "cool"

7. enough to fit in with the innocent people of their age group. This causes them to find comfort
inother people like them, who are more times than not, Growing up in a happy home, it is hard
forme to imagine that these aggressive behaviours are a direct result of the parents
mannerismsdelinquents themselves In evaluating the sources, all of the sources in my estimation
are reliable and are authorized togive information, with some having experience on the subject
matter or others having intellectualknowledge based on research and statistics. The first source
consulted was Dr Leahcim Semaj;he is a psychologist by profession; this psychologist believes
that by working with our ideas(human capital) and each other (our social capital) we can change
the world. It is with this idealthat Dr. Leahcim Semaj takes on the mantle of motivational
speaker, career developer and aprofessed agent of social change. With all this said I have no
reservation in deeming him acredible and reliable source, having the credentials to speak on the
topic of poor parenting. Theinformation given in Dr Semajs speech is valid and reflects the
current situation in todayssociety and is reasonable and correct based on common sense
reasoning, despite of the five yearlapse in time, the information is still reliable, due to the fact
that much as not changed since thelast 5 years. The medium for which this information was
collected was via the Jamaica Observernews paper. The second source Cody Kulla is a lecturer
of journalism at the Greensburgeuniversity in Pennsylvania, and would be considered a valid
source however, Cody Kullasisolation from the circumstances of the lower class and the
negative effects of poor parentingdoes not make her opinion the most credible source, however
she does make a excellent pointwhen she states that poorer children do not have the means to fit
in with children of the upperclass. It is a known fact that children of the upper class have parents
who can afford to send themto the best schools, buy them the best learning materials and afford
them opportunities that a
8. poor child can only dream off. This puts children of the lower class at a disadvantage, and
somefall to the vicious cycle of poverty. The Yahoo! Contributor Network allows
writers,photographers, and videographers to share their knowledge and passion with hundreds
ofmillions of people worldwide. Find your audience and earn money by publishing your
uniqueperspectives on Voices and other Yahoo! sites. RequisiteThe problems I faced in doing this
research paper is finding credible opposing arguments on thistopic.In my conclusion use the
definition of Claudette Crawford-Brown/ 1999 stated that parentinginvolves the encouragement
of socially approved patterns and the discouragement of otherhabits