© ESL Study Guide
Topic: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents or other adult relatives should make important decisions for their older (15 to 18 year-old) teenage children. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Whether parents or other adults should make important decisions for older teenagers is a matter some debate. While some argue that young adults need guidance from their parents or older relatives, others believe that young adults should be allowed to make their own decisions. I believe teenagers should be allowed to make all of their own decisions as they will both learn from their mistakes and develop a sense of responsibility.
First, becoming an adult involves learning from your mistakes. If adults were to take away this process, teenagers would never learn from their mistakes. For example, consider what would happen if a student decided to cheat on an exam. Assuming they passed, the student would be completely unprepared to complete the next level of the course or program. Once the student’s grades began slipping, parents may be upset and think the student is simply not studying. The student needs to learn that the mistake they made was cheating and learn to be better prepared. Learning from the mistake might involve the student repeating a course to ensure they are prepared to continue and have the necessary skills and knowledge. Simply following the instructions of others would only lead the student into being completely unprepared for real life.
Second, teenagers need to develop a sense of responsibility. Once becoming an adult, people have little recourse for avoiding trouble. Neither someone’s mother nor father will be able to deal with the issues of their adult children. Employers value independence and original though from their employees. Someone with the tendency to mindlessly follow instructions and no sense of responsibility is only likely to be fired. Ignoring the work environment, consider the actions of son or daughter when it comes to personal relationships. Not knowing how to be responsible around other people is likely to have adverse effect on social relationships. For these reasons, it is imperative to develop a sense of responsibility.
In conclusion, I believe that teenagers should make all of their own important decisions. By making their own decisions, they will be able to learn from their own mistakes as well as develop a sense of responsibility. This is a process that will ensure teenagers are sufficiently prepared to deal with the real world.