Who are, in fact, teenagers? These are growing up children. Or rather - maturing. And with adolescence, the main problems of adolescence are connected. Physical, mental, moral, social growth, unfortunately, does not keep pace, and this uneven development leads to psychological contradictions, so characteristic of children aged 11-17 years.
What happens in practice? The growing child feels and realizes his physical maturation and his increased need and ability to perceive information. He feels that in these manifestations he has approached adults, and wants to align with them as soon as possible. But because of moral and social immaturity, a teenager can not at times realize that, apart from rights, he also has responsibilities.
Using the strong desire of adolescents to defend their rights everywhere and everywhere, specialists from relevant fields (lawyers, psychologists, etc.) create entire organizations: all kinds of centers for legal assistance to minors. And this is not bad at all, provided that real professionals are working there who want to really help. Otherwise, it sometimes comes to ridiculous precedents, such as, for example, a lawsuit against school teachers "making" pupils clean up in the classroom.
How to explain the adolescent's responsibilities?
Well, if you realized that your growing child knows the rights too well, while ignoring the duties, it's time to explain to him the relationship between the rights and responsibilities of the adolescent. If traditional, "grandfather" means like parables and sayings ("love to ride - love and sleigh to carry") do not help, try to talk about this relationship on the example of the state system. Teenagers like facts and any "smart" information. Tell your "rebel" about the principle of unity (interconnection) of rights and duties that is officially functioning in all democratic states - you can read about it in any textbook on constitutional law. Explain that every person - not just a teenager, but an adult - has, along with rights, responsibilities. And by the way, adults have much more responsibilities than teenagers.
Starting such a conversation, avoid didactic intonations. Tell me that you yourself want to understand, and what rights and duties a citizen now has in his new age. Examine together such legal documents, for example, as the Declaration and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (respectively, 1959 and 1989). By the way, the first document states that any person who has not reached the age of 18 years is a child. So, as can be seen, the whole world believes that a teenager is still a child. Reading the list of rights, do not be too lazy to sharpen at everyone, ask the child how he thinks, this right is respected to him or not. Perhaps, already at this stage you will learn a lot for yourself.
Well, now you can go on to the question of what duties a teenager has. Here, of course, your task is somewhat complicated by the fact that there is no separate legal document declaring the responsibilities of children and adolescents. Nevertheless, these duties are spelled out in separate laws, which can be easily found on the Internet. Here are just some of them:
- Obligation to receive basic general education, i.e. finish 9 classes of secondary school (spelled out in the Law "On Education");
- duty to be a law-abiding citizen; do not commit crimes, offenses, other actions that may harm other people, not to use or carry weapons, including knuckwheels, boomerangs, folding knives with an ejecting blade (spelled out in the Administrative and Criminal Code, the Law on Arms);
- duty to respect the rights of others, i.e. to exercise their rights without prejudice to the interests of others (prescribed in the Constitution).
Duties of a teenager in the family
Theory and legal documents are good, but it's time to move on to practical tasks and talk about the responsibilities of a teenager at home. We will not give here lists of possible specific duties - this is not necessary. It will be enough to list the basic rules to which the responsibilities of the adolescent are subject, and there are not many of them:
- respect family traditions, respectful attitude towards relatives;
- clean up after yourself;
- to protect family property;
- help when asked if there is no valid reason for refusal.
Home, family - this is the first place where a child learns to communicate and interact with other people. On how the relationship between the adolescent and his relatives will be built up, the way in which he will feel surrounded by people will largely depend on his adult life. If everyone respects each other in the family, responsibly fulfills their duties, if the atmosphere of voluntary cooperation and mutual assistance reigns, then the child growing up in this family, as they say, "will not perish" in life.