II. Answer these questions and discuss them with your classmates

Family

It is difficult to imagine our life without the family because it is the first thing people face up when they are born. The family provides its members with protection, companionship, and security. From the very birth the family plays a great role in bringing up children. Parents give their children an idea of a family, teach them the first social skills and explain both the good and the bad.

The more time parents spend with their children, the closer are the ties that join the family. Small children try to imitate their parents in their behavior and manners because parents at this stage are the most influential people for them.

As children grow, their environmental expands too. They start going to school and make friends with children from other families. They begin to function independently of their parents. In turn school and friends affect children a lot. Friends may influence their clothes, tastes in music or reading or even their behavior. It becomes common for most young people to spend their free time outdoors because street life is important for them.

The family is the key element in influence on children because parents affect their children’s personalities in many important ways: they provide, in their warmth and style of discipline, and in the security they ensure, support and love. Many abilities and characteristics developed in childhood last a lifetime.

 

Task 2

II. Answer these questions and discuss them with your classmates.

1. How many members are there in your family?

2. Do your parents understand you?

3. In what way do you help your parents?

4. How do you get along with your family?

5. Which of the parents do you want to be like? Why?

6. Are you the only child in the family?

7. Do you spend much time with your family?

Youth Problems

Youth is a period of life which is of utmost importance in the life of man. First, man’s entire life is rooted in his early years. The morals and beliefs, range of interests, education, health and habits are all laid in childhood and youth, the personality is shaped.

Second, youth is a time when a person is trying to find his place in the world. This period is usually associated with problems: young people ‘struggle’ to fit themselves into society. There are several problems the young generation face: choosing a career and getting education, the problem of independence and money, the problem of unemployment of young people, the generation gap. Young people have many problems of emotional and personal character which may look silly and unimportant in the eyes of grown-ups but appear to be extremely important to the young. They are the problems of friendship and loneliness, as well as the problem of the first love.

Probably the most vital problem is choosing a career, which is really difficult. Perhaps one of the most fundamental problems faced by young people today is unemployment. many youths today are experiencing problems in obtaining jobs. To solve the problem of unemployment, young people should strive for higher education. Then they would be qualified for skilled labour required by industrialized society.

Another problem facing young people today is the tension which exists between parents and children, or the ‘generation gap’.

The ‘generation gap’ problem is really inevitable. Firstly, every generation is unique in its experience, and young people have always rejected or at least questioned the values of their parents. They have always wanted to learn from their own experience, not from their parents’ standards. They try to impose their ideas upon their children.

An area which poses a problem for young people and their parents is love and dating. Some parents today are prepared to give their children some freedom, others are overprotective, restricting their children from going out with the opposite sex. Thus, many young people today can’t get the valuable experience of adjusting to other people.

Some parents are democratic in this respect, and allow their children considerable freedom in their relations with the opposite sex. Others are overprotective and forbid their teenage children to go out with people they like, which, in my opinion, can result in many psychological problems as (hey prevent their children from getting an experience of communicating with representatives of the opposite sex, and this can lead to serious fam­ily problems later.

Grown-ups should work together with young people to help them solve these problems.

Task 2