0516 - Real Test Topic 12

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents today find it harder to influence their children for children are now influenced by may things outside home.

Thoughout history, parents have been the guardians and the most important influcencers of their children. However, it seems that things have changed during the past few decades: parents today find it harder to influence their children than in the past. Actually, along with the development of technology, this is an inevitable phenomenon and there is no way to avoid it.

Children today attain information from much more sources, thus, parents are no longer the only authority, and they gradually lose their influence. In the past, children mostly acquired basic knowledge of themselves and the world around them from their parents, but today, with the help of internet and other media, children can get access to anything that they find interesting and it seems like there is no need to turn to parents for help. Some of them even trust internet more than they trust their parents, and no matter what their parents tell them, they would go online to check the information by themselves.

Also, advanced means of communication provides children with countless listeners, who replace parents as consultants and adviser. Children 50 years ago might have no choice but to share their happiness and sorrow with parnets for they had no other outlets, not even telephones, at home. But today, the internet connects people around the globe, so that they fell like they live in a huge oneline community. They can meet the talk without being blocked by time and distance. Parents, therefore, now play a secondary role in the influence of a child because of these new options. Many of the parents will even tell you that they have no idea what really bothers or confuses their children.

Finally, I would like to talk about the changes that modern means of transportation invites. With the frequent use of cars, trains and even airplanes, young people tend to go to bigger cities and better countries for a better life, so they no longer live with their parents for a long time like they did in the old days. The truth is that many young people, in search of better education or jobs, would go to a new environment without parents beside them, and during these years they do not even visit their hometowns onec. Under the circumstances, they are more likely to be influcenced by people around them like their colleagues or classmates. Parents gradually become "strangers" with who they might not even be able to get along well after leaving home for several years.

Technology has brought us many changes and the decrease of parental influcence is one of them. Whether we like it or not, this trend will continue in the future.