Running Away Children

Running Away Children

(M. Jufrianto)

It was July 5^th, very late at night; I was shocked by a boy knocking my front door while calling my name. Yeah, it was one of my students. He had a problem with his parents and decided to run away from his house. Seeing this condition, I started thinking why many children nowadays decide to run away from their home instead of being patient. According to Saneesh Michael in his article “Why Many Children Run away?” the number of children who run away from home is increasing in a dangerous degree. It results to millions of parents endure every year since their children leave the house. They even say that it would be a never-ending nightmare.  

Running away from home is usually a quick decision. Most children suddenly leave their home to show their anger to their parents about everything they dislike at home. They do it as a symbol of their protest to their parents to change every single thing they do at home. There are some reasons why the children came to this conclusion. Those are mostly related their willingness to look for the safety and the freedom that they think they need it.

The evidence has steadily shown that most children make their mind up to run away from their house to look for safety. Most of them choose to take the risk after having great conflict with their parents. The conflict is resulted from their parents cannot understand them well, to what they want and need. Because of this condition, they will feel unsafe staying at home. They think that running away from home is better than staying. In that time, they feel that there must be a better world out there as stated in article “child has threatened to run away from home. What should we do? Furthermore, most of them will run away to look for the place or the person whom they think they can be safe with. They tend to choose their best friends or the people whom they think can hear their problems.

The reality also says that most of the children come to this decision to look for freedom. They think that staying away will free them to do everything that they cannot do at home either good or bad ones. At home, their parents will manage their lives. They will be under controlled. They will not be free to do anything they want. Every single thing they want should be agreed by their parents. They do not even have right to choose what they need for their future. When both of them come to big quarrel, this will finally lead them to running away from home.

 One of the easily identified example or this is teen model and actress Arumi Bachsin’s decision to run away. According to Jakarta Post Newspaper, it states that Arumi came to the decision to escape from home because she was burdened by too many contracts, which left her no time to play with her peers. All of the agreements had been approved by her mother without her being involved in the decision. This evidence led Arumi to decision to get away from home. She thought that her mother had taken her lives working without having free time to hang out with others ass her friends did.

However, their decision to run away from home sometimes becomes question in our mind. Is running away from home the best solution? Can it overcome the problem or just bring other problem instead? Since this is a very instant decision, I believe that their decision to run away from home can lead to some shortcomings. This instant solution made by them will even bring drawbacks for them. This can be disadvantageous to the children itself and also the parents of course.

For children, unconsciously their decision to run away from home can also lead them the worst thing. This is an instant decision, therefore, they will forget to think what would be negative impact resulted from their decision. Mostly, when they decide to run away from home, most of them will not find the nearest place to hide. They tend to look for the place which is far away from their homes, where they think their parents cannot find them. They even decide to do it at late at night when nobody can see them. Unfortunately once they are out on the street they will be exposed to a new set of dangers. With no money or support they frequently turn to drug dealing, prostitution, and thievery. Along the streets, there will be a lot of people who are just waiting for the children to run away from home so that they can prey on them. Pedder States in her writing “ Statistics on Kids Running Away from Home” that due to the criminal records, there are approximately 725.000 cases where a child’s disappearance needed the help of law enforcement because they become involved in using drugs, prostitution or pornography.

In the other side, the children decision to run away from home will also result to their parents, particularly for mother who had brought them to the world. She will be depressed having this condition. She will think that she has failed in educating their children. When she keeps thinking about this problem, it will finally lead her to a worse condition. She began to suffer disease such as having high blood pressure and others.

In a nut shell, running away from home seems to be complicated. There are some causes and effects brought by this.  The reason of safety and freedom becomes the main causes why they escape from home. If it happens in our lives, all of us have to be able to see both sides, from the children perspectives and the parents’ perspectives. Whether running away from home is a good or bad solution. It can result both negative and positive impact for them, children and parents. The important thing should be done from now on is communicate, listen, help, understand and try to solve their problems patiently. Parents should be able to be more opened to their children instead of being arrogant in anything. Be communicative in everything. They need someone to talk to. Be good listeners for them. Every time children have problem, be ready for their shoulder to cry on.  This condition will help you to provide a better quality of life at home. A loving and happy home atmosphere with good communication will help your child to feel secure, which will make them think twice before running away from home.

References:

Michael, Saneesh.  “Why Many Children Run away?”2007. Article source, inc. 27 august 2007<http://living.oneindia.in/pregnancy-parenting/kids/2007/children-runaway-physical-abuse.html>.

Pedder, Madeline. “Statistics on Kids Running Away from Home”. 2009. Article source, Inc. 12 April. 2009 < http://www.EzineArticles.com/4401122>.

… “My Child has Threatened to Run away from Home. What should we Do?” 2010. Article source, Inc. 15 June 2010http://www.helathychildren.org/English/family-life/family-dynamics/communication-discipline/pages/Running-Away-from-Home.aspx?.

…. “ Teen Model and Actress Runs Away from Home”. 2010.  Article source, Inc. 15 Mei 2010 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/15/teen-model-and-actress-runs-away-home-html.