There are many social problems affecting the children of today's society in the classroom. Among these problems for the children are new American family patterns; poverty, homelessness, teenage patenting, abused and neglected children, alcohol and drug abuse, adolescent suicide, school violence and vandalism, and school drop our rates.
One of these problems is the change in new American family patterns. Traditionally families have been mother, father, and children. This is not the case in most families today. There is no longer a typical family in students. There are an increased number of children being raised by single parents. Twenty two percent of these students live with their mom, four percent live with their father and another four percent live with neither mom nor dad. Also three quarters of the kids today live in families where both parents work full time or whomever they are residing with works full time. Another social problem affecting the children today is poverty. "The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer." A little over eleven percent of today's population is impoverished. This rate, however, is higher among minorities. In families headed by females more than fifty five percent are poor. Children make up about one fourth of today's population but they constitute thirty six percent of the poor. Another issue is Homelessness. Families in poverty pay more than one half of there annual income on rent. One accident or emergency in this case can cause a family a lot of trouble and they could not be able to pay there rent. In result, most of these families will lose there home. There are more than a million children that are homeless in the U.S. and seven hundred and fifty thousand of these children are of the school age. Many of these students run away due to different types of abuse, exposure to unhealthy elements, and lack of health care. Another social problem is teenage parenting.
