CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1Background to the Study
Adolescents today, are generally perceived by the adults as a group who constantly engage in activities which are contrary to the norms, ethics and values of the society. According to Omoegun (2000), the adolescents due to their behaviour which are inimical to society’s norms and values, many at times, fail short of the demands of the society. The society demands that the youths should present good conducts and norms which are acceptable to the general community, which are also prerequisites for healthy living and good interactions in the society. As Onyedika (2003) observes, no decent society would like its youths to be recalcitrant to its laid down values and accepted norms.
According to Onwuama (1988), the youngsters are seen as a group constantly seeking independence from the adult society, particularly, of parents and other authority figures. This need for independence has led adolescents to take a position and views different from those of their parents and other adults, and to act in conformity with their peers, however unconventional their actions may be. Nowadays, it is not unusual to hear some parents complaining about their children’s uncooperative attitudes. These days, children tend to disobey their parents and obey their friends and take directives from them. Agunloye (2000) states that it is very essential for parents to watch out for the company that their adolescent children associate with or keep. A popular adage says, “show me your friend and I will tell you who you are”. This means that if a child associates with drug pushes or abusers, sooner or later, he would join the group. Or if he/she associates with rogues and armed robbers, he/she would sooner or later be persuaded to join the group on one of their trips and share in the booty”. A trial will convince you! So they say.
According to Onuoha (2005), parents are largely responsible for the lapses in the adolescent behaviour, because, they are expected to serve as role-models. Parents need to give more attention to the development of their adolescents in order to inculcate the right sense of discipline and correct orientation in them. This is because, where parents fail to train or bring up their child in the right direction, they (adolescents) tend to uphold the tenets of their of peers. These peers are seemingly inexperienced in child-upbringing, therefore, they inculcate in their friends wrong ideas that do not conform with the norms accepted in the community (Ayodele, 2002).
No doubt, adolescents in our contemporary society, need to be counselled and directed on the best part to follow in life. According to Mundi (2001), the school counsellors have enormous work on their hands, because they cannot afford to sit down and watch the youths who are regarded as the greater tomorrow to act as they like and then turn to deviants in the society. When the counsellors and other significant adult members of the society fail to advise and direct the adolescents against wrong behaviour, they (adolescents) would continue in their wrong acts and uphold them till adult life, and the resultant effect is a disjointed and perverse community in which anything goes, a wild jungle where anarchy reigns supreme.
Due to economic down-turn in Nigeria, and generally in the world today, parents have lost the firm grips they had on their children’s characters (Ajibola, 2000). According to Ajibola, in the olden days, when the economy was stable and in good condition, when parents were indeed breadwinners, they (parents) used to give effective instructions and directions to their children and these instructions were followed to the last letter, but these days, many parents are no more financiers of the home, and this has caused them to loose grips on their command structure to their children. Many parents these days, do not take proper care of their children. For instance, due to economic adversity, in many homes, children go out to work, by way of hawking and doing menial jobs and come to feed their parents. This situation does not warrant these parents to have the moral rights to discipline these children even though in the face of flagrant disobedience of parents’ rules and regulations.
In this perspective, guidance and counsellors have a lot jobs to do, because their natural duties are to advise and diplomatically persuade individuals to follow the part of good life in order to come out of their problems. According to Uzoma (1998), the school should use the counsellors to return the wrong behavioural pattern of the adolescents to the good behavioural patterns where they would conform to the demands and aspirations of the decent society, especially that of the parents, teachers and the significant others in the near community.