Are curfews effective in terms of keeping teens out of trouble?
VIEW
The topic of teen curfews is usually a controversial one. There are many words or phrases that teens dread hearing from their parents, one of such words is “curfew.” Now, what are curfews? Curfews are regulations requiring people to remain indoors within specified hours, typically at night. Or in simple words it is a particular time set for teens to get back home from outing, Leisure, Parties, college, etc.
Curfews are usually implemented by parents on their kids or in a few countries where many hostels exist for students to stay or also by the government to keep crime off the streets. We live in a society where it is unsafe for even an adult to go outside after a particular time. The main purpose of having a curfew is to keep teens out of trouble and danger.
Parents have many reasons for imposing curfews on teens. The first one is because they care for their child and want them to be safe and they have the responsibility to their children morally and legally to keep them safe. Often it is not the actions of a teen that is of concern to the parent but the actions of other people. Eg driving at 8pm is safer than driving at 12am as there can be incidents of drunk driving and this can be life threatening to their teen.
Usually when teens begin to grow up they tend to explore more in terms of going out and they tend to overlook responsibility. Following social rules plays an important part in growing up. Curfews help in making a teen responsible as they learn to maintain punctuality and they also learn the concept of having fun within limits. Often, curfew violations pertaining to breaking the law are quite expensive and time consuming. That is one of the reasons parents also keep curfews for their children.it is essential that a parent should let their teen understand why a curfew is there and let them know the penalty for violating the curfew. Also, parents should be understanding and teens should be allowed to negotiate their curfews for different activities and understand that they are earning their independence through being trustworthy and mature. Therefore it is important for curfews to be implemented as it helps to keep teens out of trouble.
I hope this article sheds light on why curfews are effective in terms of keeping teens out of trouble.
- Keegan Arthur Pereira
COUNTER VIEW
Although adolescents need limits and guidelines to keep them in check during the teen years, the point of living in a place other than your ancestral/family home is to explore your surroundings, and to take the time one need’s to find themselves, their space, and their circle. Curfews are an inhibition to finding ourselves.
Even if one manages to do all of this regardless of the curfew, they, as a measure, provide a false sense of security. If one really wants to do anything past the time given to them by a guardian, who says anything could really stop them? People can lie, manipulate or even sneak out of their homes and then go do whatever they want. If anyone puts their mind to something, how could something as insignificant as a curfew stop them?
Legal curfews implemented by the government in various countries have created a lot of problems for parents like when curfew laws are violated it can be quite expensive and time consuming. Minors are by far the most unfree people in our society and they do not have any freedom of movement whatsoever. In many parts of The US curfew laws are enforced on the youth therefore many of them learn to invoke secrecy in what they do like getting older people to buy forbidden products or lying to go to certain places. In many parts of Europe, teens below the age of 18 have fake id’s to enter a pub.
Therefore, I believe it is essential that curfew laws shouldn’t be implemented in our society and curfews aren’t effective in keeping our young teens out of trouble.
- Rahul Parekh
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