Nothing to Do in a Small Town - Speech Example

It is a challenge for at-kids in small towns to identify useful, engaging activities. Kids from these backgrounds are a disadvantaged lot. They are hopeless with not much to look up to in life. Some of the biggest issues affecting kids in small towns today are that they have nothing for them to do, they walk around, hang around the parks, skate, play video games, and club among other things. Besides, most of their socializing results in teenage pregnancies, drug addictions, school dropouts, and other social crimes. According to statistics, the majority of inmates are individuals who grew up in poor backgrounds. What if some major interventions were made in lives of these people when they were growing up? What makes them so different from their counterparts in urban areas? Most of these kids have very little understanding of the future. In most situations, they become accomplishers of drug activities in the small towns (Vissing & Yvonne, 4). More developments should be introduced in small towns to help kids engage in constructive activities.

Kids in small towns encounter and struggle with social and emotional changes that occur during childhood development and at transition periods to adulthood. These kids need to develop skills such as determination and resilience to enable them to take responsibility and make decisions regarding their future lives (Sluckin & Andy, 32). Choosing friendship for kids in the poor neighborhood is very difficult as most of the people they hang around with are gangs smoking cigarettes. The kids in small towns feel less pressure to perform in school and record more trouble with the police. Besides, they are more likely to engage in unprotected sex, abuse alcohol and other substances as well as have access to firearms. They express the feeling of hopelessness, and there is no promising future in such communities. Even the few who could have done better in school are dragged into the societal mess. The use of prisons as a way of warning kids out of trouble in these areas has failed as most of them still end up in prison. These are significant challenges that should be addressed in time to ensure these at-risk kids live meaningful lives. When we save kids, we protect our wealth and ensure prosperity in the society as a whole. The future leadership of our nation will be safe. One sure way of kids developing in the desirable members of the society is through enhancing developments in small towns. The kids there need mentors, and they need role models (Tough & Paul, 76). The development would help re-engineer their attitudes and perception about their futures.

Kids are the employers and employees of tomorrow, developing small towns will ensure that kids in these cities identify with suitable ambitions, work hard in school and achieve their dreams. Secondly, the rate of premarital sex and pregnancies outside wedlock will reduce as kids will gain access to healthy living habits and focus more on personal development urge to prosper as their working-class role models. Our government would raise more revenues from taxes and instead of using taxpayer's money to expand jails; focus would turn to more development and expansion of the economy.

In conclusion, initiating programs like mentorship and opening developments would help protect kids living in small towns. The kids will grow up as responsible members of the society with much focus to work hard and achieve. The premarital pregnancies, social crimes, school dropout, and drug-related cases among kids would reduce. The community would thus grow up a productive and prosperous one.

Work Cited

Dingwall, Robert, John Eekelaar, and Topsy Murray. The protection of children: State intervention and family life. Vol. 16. Quid Pro Books, 2014.

Sluckin, Andy. Growing up in the playground: The social development of children. Vol. 51. Routledge, 2017.

Tough, Paul. How children succeed. Random House, 2013.

Vissing, Yvonne. Out of sight, out of mind: Homeless children and families in small-town America. University Press of Kentucky, 2015.

Zhao, Chenyue, et al. "Care for left-behind children in rural China: A realist evaluation of a community-based intervention." Children and Youth Services Review (2017).