Teenage Students’ Behavioural Problems and Consequent Low Academic Achievement: Who to Blame?

Abstract

The negative behaviour of teenage students in Nigeria in recent times has become a source of concern to parents and society. The general observation is that children are often left entirely to the care of maids as parents have abandoned their primary assignment of proper child upbringing in pursuit of material and pecuniary benefits. Consequently, children grow up to teenagers without the proper basic training for positive teenage development upon which the secondary school can build. The general feeling is that teenage students are insolent, rude, rough, dishonest, fraudulent, stubborn and disobedient to their parents, elders and teachers. They are also perceived as being too undisciplined, unorganized and restive to make meaningful academic achievement. Instead, they indulge in all manners of negative behaviour which they internalize through phones, assorted sophisticated electronic play devices and the internet - all due to lack of proper parental guidance. In this review, I examined some possible lapses of the home, school, teachers, government, society and even the teenagers themselves and their influence on behaviour of teenage students. Suggestions for disciplined behaviour among teenage students for improved academic achievements were proposed.