Mweyulu

Teenagers should make their own decisions

Some teenagers accept their parents as decision makers, but teenagers are becoming independent and do not accept their parents' decisions. Most parents think that teenagers aren't old enough to think farther. Therefore, they always make decisions for their teenage children. This may effect teenagers' futures because they will become dependent on their parents and they will not be able to make their own decisions correctly. They neither will have their own goals nor ambitions because everything in their lives are made up and decided by their parents. In contrast, parents should be there to help when their children make wrong decisions. Parents should let their teenage children become who they want to be not who the parents envisioned them to be. All in all, parents should support teenagers to make their own decisions for better future.

Parents' decisions are based on the experience they had in the past which are not corresponding to our era. The following are the most likely areas parents interfere in:

• Career opportunities
• Love life
• Places of hang-out
• Who the child must go out with

Decisions such as career opportunities should be made by teenagers themselves and parents should only assist and motivate them

Adolescents face a number of challenges in making healthy decisions because they:

• may see only either-or choices rather than a variety of options
• may lack the experience, knowledge or feeling of control over their lives to come up with alternative choices
• may misperceive certain behaviors as less risky, and may be overly optimistic about their ability to recognize and avoid threatening situation
• may favor their own experience over probabilistic evidence when determining the likelihood of the consequences of their actions
• may focus more on the social reactions of their peers when deciding to engage in or avoid risky behaviors
• may not be able to accurately estimate the probability of negative consequences
• may have a hard time interpreting the meaning or credibility of information when making decisions
• may be influenced by their emotions and fail to use decision-making processes

Reasons why parents make decisions for teenagers===

1. They make teenagers understand the complexities involved in deciding a future path.
2. They have their child's best interest at heart.
3. They gain pride by guiding their children by the way they want.

However, decisions made by parents make teenagers uncomfortable and less active because the teenagers know what makes them happy or unhappy, and what they want or like. Parents' decisions are sometimes binding and offend teenagers' lives. They need to be independent and free to decide on what thy want to be and achieve their goals. Moreover, they need to experience the world of decision making, so that they can can be competent and become leaders.