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Although sports provide a great opportunity for adolescents to be involved in an after-school activity, many teens have no interest in what is being offered. Many of the schools that provide after-school activities only have a limited variety of programs for the teens to participate in, most of them only provide sports. With the lack of activities teens are more likely to engage in drug and alcohol abuse, join gangs and commit crimes. With an increased variety of activities or programs the percentage of children likely to do these things will decrease.
From my own personal experience I can testify to the fact that the lack of programs in my community helped contribute to my teenage bad behaviors. Although my high school had many sport programs, I was not interested. There were no other programs offered to students like myself, who were interested in activities such as art, music, or dance. There were no town recreation centers and no church programs for those that were not catholic. With the lack of programs I was more prone to the bad influences that many teens face. “Four-in-ten teens who do not attend after-school programs say it is because they simply are not interested in what is being offered…”(www.news.youthlearn.org).
The main reason that there are not enough programs is due to the lack of adults that want to donate their time to supervise or lead the teens. Not only are they not available in school settings, but they are not available to open a teen recreation center. With the lack of adult involvement, children between the ages of ten and twelve are battling parents to stay home unsupervised. As Polatnick states, “We know that the period of preteen into early adolescence is a very vulnerable age and a critical time in development”(www.berkeley.edu). Most children at this age have working parents and therefore, are more likely to be left home alone. This is the age where older influences can either play a very positive or negative effect...