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The following case study taken from Eftimiades et al. evidences the effect of a child left unsupervised by parents during his formative years to become a violent adult. Jeremy Strohmeyer was an average 18 -year-old teenager who grew increasingly defiant as time progressed. He was once a successful student and a volleyball player. He lived a middle class life; his mother was a successful marketing executive and his father was a real estate investor. Jeremy's community was shocked to see or hear of the murder he committed.
Jeremy, his friend David and Davids father traveled to Nevada to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday. At a casino in Nevada Jeremy began to play hide and seek with 7 -year-old Sherrice Iverson. Sherrice left to go to the restroom and Jeremy followed. He then raped and strangled the child and left to continue celebrating the holiday with David and Davids father. A surveillance tape recorded the entire event and was aired on national television. Jeremy's classmates recognized him, and he was arrested.
Many people blame Jeremy's parents for the incident even though the tape stunned them too. His parents were also unaware of the fact that he owned a collection of pornographic photos including those of young children. Jeremy's mother was always at work and did not take time to participate in his life (Eftimiades et al. 65). Violence among children is increasing dramatically. The number of murders committed by adolescents has notably risen from 1, 000 to almost 4, 000 over the last decade (Eftimiades et al. 63). The increase of violent children is proportional to the increase of single parent families.
According to the Chancellor of the New York City school system, 12, 000 of the 60, 000 kindergartners are being raised by mothers in their teenage years, and forty percent of the children are being raised in single-parent homes (Fagan 61). Although the cause of each violent child is unique to the individual, there are several acknowledged risk factors that contribute to the increase of violence among children. The lack of parental presence, an unstable family unit, government intervention, and the absence of a father are contributing factors that trigger violence among children. Children tend to become violent and behave improperly when they experience a lack of presence, communication and emotion from their parents (Fagan 60). In the modern American family, both parents devote many hours to work in order to afford all their desired items (Segalman and Himelson 19). Fagan entails that the supervision that these children receive is not adequate because these supervisors do not care for the childs moral well-being.
Children who are placed in these positions began to feel neglected and overlooked and sometimes even resentful towards parents. Fagan describes how children experience a lack of guidance and parental supervision which makes them resort to other areas to fulfill the attention desired. The majority of these children will find a place for themselves among other children who participate in defiant acts such as drug use, vandalism, and premarital sex (Fagan 60). Aside from working, these parents often concentrate on their own work and social lives during leisure time rather than spending the time engaging in their childrens lives.
Parents do not teach children the importance of virtue and family which is essential for children to behave and act appropriate (Segalman and Himelson 19). Fagan's subtle implication states that due to the lack of attention children receive from parents, they feel they do not have their parents to rely upon for guidance and aid. Parents also do not pay enough attention to children to recognize conflicts or confusion. Children who do not converse regularly with parents may not feel comfortable introducing awkward issues to parents; therefore, these issues will remain unanswered. Children may also be experiencing problems unconsciously which are evident to others and not detected by parents due to a lack of attention, and the child's uncertainty will remain unresolved (Fagan 60). Segalman and Himelson caution that as Americans progress towards the future, unstable family units or broken homes are becoming increasingly accepted and adopted as normal.
These types of families have a negative effect on a child because children do not acknowledge the importance of the family because it is not exhibited at home (Segalman and Himelson 21). These children are deprived of love, affection, and care and may gain problems such as aggressiveness and hostility and become labeled as misguided youth (Fagan 60). Children are also not observing the importance, sacredness, and obligation of marriage since they come from disillusioned families (Horn 56). Fagan believes children who come from broken homes may also witness violent conflicts among their parents; Consequently, violence within families has a negative imprint on a child.
The future violent criminal may have witnessed acts of aggression among parents or may have been the victim of these acts by enduring physical or sexual abuse from parents. Children who were abused as youth are likely to become the abusers in adulthood. They are unable to break the harmful cycle placed upon them by their parents. These violent people will repeat this cycle while reproducing children; incidentally, accumulating crime within their community (Fagan 61). Along with the other factors, Segalman and Himelson imply that the government has played a significant role in the creation of violent children. Government intervention has offered citizens more personal freedom, yet eliminated the power (control) that parents possess over their children (Segalman and Himelson 21).
The government is also removing parental power over children by allowing teens to achieve abortion without parental consent, which helps teens favor the government over parents (Horn 56 - 57). Segalman and Himelson also note: The further away from the family the power resides the more likely it is to create and compound negative unintended consequences. As one social philosopher described this process, it was done with the best of intentions and the worst of results. William J. Bennett has noted that government, obviously, cannot fill a childs emotional needs. Nor can it fill his spiritual and moral needs.
Government is neither a father nor mother. Government has never raised a child, and it never will. (q. in Segalman & Himelson 22) Horn explains that the government is constantly informing authority figures and citizens to suspect parents of child abuse which implies that parents are the cause of society's family problems. The government is basically advising children not to trust their parents by explaining that parents are not doing whats best for children and causing conflicts within the family (56 - 57). Horn declares that the absence of a father in the family also creates a negative impact on children. According to Horn, Almost seventy five percent of American children living in fatherless households will experience poverty before the age of eleven (52).
A father and a mother are both necessary to raise well-behaved moral children (55). Fathers generally tend to be stricter and establish the family rules while mothers nurture children and enforce safety. Children learn by observational learning; therefore, they tend to imitate their parents decisions and actions. Fathers are an essential instructing tool for children; incidentally, they are an authority figure that children are required to obey to become well disciplined (54). Children will absorb both the positive and negative characteristics of their parents. Hence, parents who behave inappropriately will raise children who behave in a similar manner (54).
Horn states, Nearly four out of ten children in America are being raised in homes without their fathers (52). There is a positive correlation between fatherlessness and teen crime; teen crime is expected to escalate since the teen population is expected to increase by twenty percent over the next decade and these children are also expected to be fatherless (55 - 56). In fact, seventy percent of men in prison who are serving long-term sentences were fatherless growing up (53). Violence among children has become a serious issue. Parents are not teaching and displaying to their children the importance of family.
Hence, children do not comprehend in a rational sense the importance of family and the destructiveness of crime within families and society. Fagan accurately addresses that the backbone of strong neighborhoods and communities is friendship and cooperation among families" (62). In addition children have a talent for hiding their emotions within themselves till they reach a point where they burst and commit irrational acts. For example, in the case study mentioned by Eftimiades et al.
it was not Jeremy's hormones that led to his violent act of crime. It was years of bottled up emotions due to a lack of parental interest in Jeremy's life, triggered by the presence of the unsupervised child which led to his horrific crime. Many children such as Jeremy are left unsupervised by parents and commit minor or severe crimes that forces society to label them as misguided youth (Eftimiades et al. 65).
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