Masoud Tizrounoubari: Teen Violence

The terms teen, youth, and juvenile are used more or less interchangeably when discussing violence by and against young people. Violence is any physical conduct that causes injury or harm to another person. Therefore teen violence means that the victim, the perpetrator, or both are between twelve and twenty years old. In these important years of life that are foundations of shaping behavior, personality and habits and characteristic of teenagers, society and parents play important role in rising children; as a matter of fact Family and society are two main reasons that should be capable to cause teen violence.

Family is the first and foremost reason that causes forty three percent of teen violence. While genetics contributes to a tendency for aggressive behaviors even if environmental factors are excluded. Recent research demonstrates a multi factorial model with a couple of possible genes that are inherited from parents may be involved. Also one of the most important duties of a father or a mother is being responsible about their children; consequently when children are growing up and reaching to teen ages, children directly influences by their parents; for example in a home that parents don’t have appropriate relationship and arguing every day with each other or they don’t pay enough attention to their children’s needs, chance of violence would be higher than other families. By the other hand especially in crowded families fight between teen siblings can cause teen violence; more over in some studies have been shown that less than four years age differ between siblings can lead them to more fight in the family and more violence in teenagers.


Society is the other reason of teen violence that causes twenty percent of teen violence. Mass Media as a part of communication technology of society with a tremendous addressee could have been one of the several reasons of teen violence. Therefore television as a part of mass media can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior in teenagers. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is full of scenes of sex and violence. Also nowadays access to the Internet especially online gaming and spending time in front of computer, where that there are many violent games, shows and movies, can lead teenagers to act like them; more over Teens who commit acts of violence are often involved in other types of risky or criminal behavior. They may use drugs, carry weapons and drive recklessly. In spite of the fact that good relation ship between classmates and peer groups can help teenagers to share their ideas and develop role of being as a member of society in the future, in some cases this kind of relation ships with no supervision can be harmful and can lead teenagers to violence.

In conclusion good relation ship between parents and also sibling at home and spending time to talk and communicate with teenagers, a great household life with no arguments and big disagreements, supervising teenagers to help them to choosing good friends can provide a nice atmosphere for teenagers at home or society to prevent themselves from participating violence; on the other hand a responsible media in society that provide teenager’s needs by showing wholesome programs specially in the prime time or by changing some roles and laws, are the ways that can lead a society to decrease numbers of teen violence.