High School Dropouts Essay, Research Paper

High School Dropouts

Student s dropping out of high school is a common everyday thing in today s society. The causes for these dropouts vary from case to case, but are usually closely related. The vast majority of students who drop out usually do so because they have a poor home life. This poor home life often causes many problems that eventually overwhelm the student, and lead him to dropping out of school.

One way that a poor home life leads to high school dropouts is through a lack of guidance. Oftentimes, a student that has a poor home life does not get much guidance at home. The student is usually inexperienced when it comes to decision-making, and because the parents do not guide the student in the right direction, the student often makes the wrong decision. In this case, the wrong decision is dropping out of high school. Although there are guidance counselors at school that the student could talk to, oftentimes the student feels embarrassed to talk to the counselor because he does not want anyone to know about his poor home life. If the student did not have a poor home life, there would not have been a lack of guidance in his life. The student would have most likely stayed in school because his parents would have given him valuable guidance when problems or situations arose.

Another way that a poor home life leads to high school dropouts is through financial problems. Although not always the case, a poor home life is usually associated with a poor, non-wealthy family. The children in the family, once of age, are usually expected to get a job to help support the family s expenses. This oftentimes requires the child to go to school during the day, and then work at night. This may work for a short period of time, but eventually, it will become too much for the child to handle. Instead of having time to do his homework, the child will be at work. This will cause the child s grades to drop, not only because of the homework, but also because he will probably be sleeping in class due to lack of sleep from working at night. Eventually, both school and work will become too much for the child to handle, and he will drop out of school. Now, instead of going to school, the child will work to support his family. If the child had not had a poor home life that created financial problems, then he would not have had to quit school to get a full time job to support his family.

One final way that a poor home life can lead to high school dropouts is through abuse. Oftentimes, a poor home life is associated with abuse. The father or mother may be unnecessarily abusing the children in the family. This can affect the child in several ways. For some children, just the cuts and bruises are enough to make them drop out of high school. This is because they are most likely made fun of at school because of the cuts and bruises, and therefore dropout just to keep from being tormented. Some children are not bothered by the physical scars, but more by the psychological effects of the abuse. The child thinks that because he is abused, that he is stupid, not good enough, etc. Since the child feels as if he is stupid, he has no desire to stay in school, because he thinks he will fail even if he stays in school. The student therefore drops out of school because of the psychological scars inflicted by his parents. If the child had not been raised in a poor home, there would have been no psychological scarring, and the child would have most likely stayed in school.

The effects of decisions made by parents can cause good or bad things to happen. When children are raised in poor environments, the decisions that parents make are oftentimes poor also. These poor parental decisions cause the children to act in negative ways. In these cases, the negative effects caused these children to drop out of high school. If the parents would have just created a better environment, and made better decisions, these children would have been less likely to drop out of high school. It is evident that poor home lives which include a lack of guidance, financial problems, and abuse, lead to students