Next, Let's understand teen's deviation behavior, demand and the opinion of mainstream society to teens.
I believe most of people concern about issues of teens, which is a kind of deviation or problem.
So next what we have to discuss is what is deviation? Actually, there are various definitions of deviation.
Those who are interested in can refer to works of sociology. What can be sure is that
the society established a common value,
discerning what are acceptable and what are not, cause the deviation.
According to Sociology of Deviant Behavior, authored by Clinard and Meier,
We can know they think the deviation is defined by the following four aspects
statistical, absolute, reactive and normal,
Statistics are very simple, as the name implies, that is to define the deviation by the few from statistic
In terms of IQ, the so-called gifted and lack of intelligence, in fact, belong to a kind of deviation.
What about absolute? It involves a judgment of value.
And it is based on the absolute standards to set the rules in advance
For instance, the laws in many country, even in all country.
If the behavior do not meet the law, we call it deviation.
So the behavior is deviation if it is illegal. And the reactive?
Reactivity is based on how people react to some kind of behaviors and label them
And the others are usually the elite of society.
For example, we say that a teen under 18 years old can't wander outside late at night. So there is curfew in a lot of society.
What about normal? Normal means the deviation is contrary to convention.
It depends on the environment or the situation. For example, smoking.
In the past, in many countries, even in Taiwan,
smoking was allowed. After passing the tobacco hazards prevention act, smoking are not allowed in many occasion.
According to the book written by Thompson and Bynum,
youth Delinquency A Sociological Approach to see, we will find that the deviation can be defined from the aspects of laws,
roles, and social reflection.
Law is very simple. What we're looking at is the essence of behavior.
But we have to pay attention that if some adults have that kind of behavior,
it is illegal. If it occurred in children, it is called "deviation".
That is, we consider it from the concept of youth Delinquent.
There is still legal responsibility for the deviation, but the punishments will be commuted.
So we hear that adults take advantage of youths to commit crimes.
Because according the law called youth Proceeding Act,
youths will not be sentenced to death in some events. As a result, the adults say,
"You will not be severely punished even if you commit crimes". In the contrast,
some behavior is OK for adults, but it is not for children.
For example, In Taiwan, under the age of 18 we cannot smoke, cannot drink,
cannot get pregnant, and cannot run away from home or school,
which we call deviant behavior.
Well, Let's think about it: Why smoking, drinking, and even pregnancy
are OK for adults. Even in the married family, pregnancy is blessed.
But as long as you are unmarried or underage, your pregnancy is condemned and rejected.
What is the reason behind it? Of course, a lot of people say that children do not smoke, drink. Smoking is harmful.
Smoking raises the risk of lung cancer. However, the logic is strange. Children will have lung cancer if they smoke.
Don't adults have lung cancer if they smoke? What is the reason behind this? Of course, adults say "We just protect these children".
Indeed, we protect them. And what is the methods we use?
In the future course, we will further discuss these issues.
Besides behavior, there is "roles" in the definition which I just mentioned.
What do "roles" mean? It refers to the person who takes action. For example,
We feel that some people have deviant behavior, and it lasts for a period of time. We think these people in their lives,
Or in identity, are using this deviant behavior-based.
So we use some names to call them, like deviated youth, or delinquents, what else? Dropouts,
female youth prostitutes. We turn these behaviors into adjectives, and fill those children with these words. But the use of the words,
the use of these words, indicates we have labeled the youth? Dropping out, a behavior; dropouts, people.
Prostitution, a behavior; youth prostitutes, people.
In such a description and the usage of words, when we continually use them,
it means that we indeed view them as such a role, rather than judge the behavior.
Next, there is another definition called social reaction.
Social reaction refers to the audience, but who is the audience?
People who judge those having deviated behaviors, and have the power and influence in society, are the audience.
The audience will react to behaviors, and define whether these behaviors are deviated.
However, people, I mean the audience, their thoughts about the behaviors
are not consistent. Therefore, we have multiple definitions of deviated behaviors as the reflection of society.
No matter who defines it, among these definitions, we can find a very important phenomenon.
That is, the deviation is actually relative, not absolute.
And that, it is not fixed. How? Due to the different social structure, different laws, and different cultures, it would have different definition of deviation.
The most important thing is that no matter how does the definition of deviation change, it usually is people with power or belonging to dominant groups
to determine with their influence what is deviation.
In such a concept, we see deviation. So, it is simple...
Everyone here, if you are a helping professional, you would say that we have to make every effort to help these teenagers
to help them to change deviant behaviors, and what do you mean change? Come on, never do these bad things again.
That's very simple. So when we social workers or teachers are helping these children, we would say,
"Dropouts? Help them back to school. Runaway teens? Help them go home. Unmarried pregnancy? Easy, just take birth control pills, and never get pregnant again."
What about people who steal? Don't steal things, right? If you really need it, pay it.
Those who take drugs? Don't take drugs. Why do you take drugs? It's bad to your health.
Have you ever done this kind of things before? Have you ever advised that kind of children?
But if you had tried to help such a youth in your life,
you may find that, why it is so difficult to change the deviant behavior?
Why changing the deviant behavior is so difficult? We might as well take a look from another perspective,
Let's think together, what kind of children will drop out?
What kind of children will run away from home?
What kind of children will use violence to solve the problem?
What can we see behind such behavior? People? Or motives?
Do we see behavior or environment? What wee see is that, behind a deviant behavior,
there may actually have a good intention and motivation.
Even for these youths, they are just choosing a helpless choice.
I'd like to share a story with you, this kid is called John.
In fact, he is an enlightenment teacher who lead me into the field of youth.
Why is he a teacher? He is actually a 16-year-old boy, before being in touch with him, I told myself that never get involved with the field of youth,
The youth are difficult to deal with. In other words, I thought that it was difficult to serve the youth as everyone did.
Because I had the same stereotypes and prejudice as everyone did.
This was one of my opinion before my exposure to social work. But John became my teacher since he told me that,
in my life experience, I started to learn how a person with different experience from mine spend his life and face his dilemma.
John had just left the consortium when I came to him.
This was in the USA, which is called consortium in Taiwan. He was caught off because of selling drugs. So after he left, as a social worker,
helping him with what was very simple. So-called "being good", what is "being good"?
You study hard, or you work hard. It is very easy, isn't it? It is really very easy,
Easy to say, but difficult to do. So in this process, I helped him try to find a job,
Yet it was really not easy to find a job. As everyone knows, a child who doesn't graduate from high school,
What kind of job do you want to find? The money reward must be very low. So he had tried to sell the newspaper,
It was very tough, he asked me if money is easy to earn by doing this.
In fact, how could it be easy? Certainly, selling drugs is easy to make money, hands out, and then back with 10 US dollars.
And selling newspaper, 4.5 US dollars an hour, which was the price nearly 20 years ago. So when he asked me this question, most adults would say,
"It is indeed not easy to earn, but what you earn is good money, clean money, money with conscience," but I couldn't tell him, the training of social workers told me, how could I tell him like this?
So I said," John, you're right, it's difficult to earn, let's resign and find another job." Then, we found many part-time jobs one after another,
all hard to earn money. In the process, I worked with his mother,
his mother told me a word, also awoke me to look at the difference between behavior and intention.
His mother told me,"Honestly, I know that John had done some bad things,
which means selling drugs. But do you know it? He is the only man being responsible among all men I have met in my life."
This mother said that John was a responsible man, but I believed that many people couldn't see where he showed his responsibility.
Then why did his mother think that he was responsible? It is very simple, his mother said that, after selling the drugs, he brought the money home.
Of course he kept a small part for himself, but most of the money was given to his mother for the family use.
Why did he gave money to his mother for the family use? Of course, it was because his father was not responsible. His father was not only irresponsible, but also ran away by car, which was bought by his mother with loan.
On one hand, his mother had to support the family; on the other hand, she had to pay the car loan, besides, had no car to drive. In addition, John had younger sisters who had the same mother but had a different father. He regarded them as his own sisters.
He bought the newest, the coolest shoes for them, the reason was very simple,
John told me that he was poor, he was ridiculed, and he would not want his sister be the same as him.
He hoped that she could be the same as her friends. However, he could not make much money, so he use the money from selling drugs to buy the most fashion shoes for his sister.
Behind it we see the good motives.
But in appearance, I see the deviant behavior.
Who is the responsible man? John's father?
Or John, who has the deviant behavior. In such deviant behavior,
I saw what John taught me. I saw the good motives behind the behavior, which people do not know.
How should we think about these children? Shall we expect him to grow out of mud, keeping pure and untainted?
Or could we only sighed "Pigeon flies with pigeon, hawk with hawk."
Beside the external behavior that can be observed, what internal needs do these youth have that we cannot see,
If we cannot see, how do we know that he has such a need?
And whether there is possibility of co-existence in these external behavior and internal needs?
Have you ever thought that violent teenagers are also under the high risk of depression?
My research have found that while they hurt others, they also hurt themselves.
They are very intolerant of themselves and unhappy, they are never pleased
when they treat others badly. So with such a concept,
I hope we all be able to think further, to learn and recognize the so-called crisis and high-risk teenagers.
I hope in such a process, we put the word "Deviation" away,
and we look at the living environment of the youth with the concept of crisis and high risk.
About how to let them be able to deal with these pressure, how to let them avoid having so-called problems,
the premise is we have to know what he needs,
