Why Do Children "Specially Teens" Sometimes Run Away from Home?

Teen age is the crucial part of growing up. On this stage, kids need proper guidance and support and if they don't get it, they will run away from home. Running away from home is the ultimate solution they could think of when they have problems specially if they don't feel the love and support they need in order to cope with the problems. This would led them to think that they might just suffer from rejection. Home is suppose to be the shelter of `teens from emotional wreck. It must be the place for them to be safe from any harms that would come their way but there are times when people in the home are the ones driving the teens away.

Here are some reasons why children run away from home

Partial treatment of parents to their kids

This is very common to parents who have more than one kids at home. Sometimes parents are not aware that they are treating their kids partially. This happened when parents give-in to the request of the other child and refuse the other. Parents usually give priority to the younger kids leaving the older ones unattended and not given so much concern anyway, they are old enough to understand and they can manage themselves because they are older. Some parents do not understand that this treatment hurts their other children. This is one of the common reasons why some children run away from home
because of resentment and hurts from the experience. They will look for people who can understand them and treat them fairly. Most often they will stay with friends or maybe with other relatives.

Parents are Busy & No time for their Kids

With the crisis we are all facing now, it is common that both parents are busy working to make both ends meet. Younger Kids will just be entrusted to the nanny or to daycare center. When these kids grow up in this situation, they lack parental love and concern. Since they have no one to share their burdens when they have problems because mom and dad are always out, they will look for comfort outside home. This is where the problem starts. Some of these kids will stay with friends who have bad influence it is all because they are enjoying with their company. Parents will just find out later when the problem is already worst. Busy parents would always have problem kids and most often, these kids run away from home.

Lack of Support from Parents

Some parents have no concern about the small details of their kids' activities in school and this means so much for the kids. Even if parents are not busy, they don't attend some important events their kids have in school. This little things make their kids felt bad inside. It is hurting for them to see other kids whose parents are giving their all out support even to the extent of leaving their work, they did it for their kids. I heard one teenager said, "Why dad can not do it for me?" This boy was just wondering why his dad can not give his spare moments to support him in his activity while the dad of his friend was able to leave his job for days and be with his kid to support him. Well, things like this will give way for teenagers to run away from home because of their frustrations caused by parents' lack of support.

Kids who Are Victims of Abuse

Some kids run away from home because of abuse. There are parents and siblings who are hard to deal with especially if they are under the control of liquor or drugs. Most people who are drunk or high with drugs are not in their right minds. There are many stories I personally heard about this when I had my volunteer wok in a govt. shelter for abused kids. A 14 year old girl shared her story that she ran away from home because she was sexually abused by her dad 3 times when he was drunk. Her mother unfortunately do not believe when she told her about what happened. She felt that no one could help her at home, so she decided to run away. She couldn't think of other place to go except to see her teacher and ask her advise. Good enough, her teacher was able to do something about her problem. The child was taken to the govt. shelter for abused kids and the case was filed against the father. There are more types of abuse that children are experiencing at home and these would prompt them to run away from home and find place where they could be safe. What a tragedy
for kids who are in this situation.

Teens whose parents are so strict with dating issues

Some teens are liberated when it comes to dating but there are parents who are very concerned about their teens dating activities. It is normal for parents to be protective with their teens' early dating activities especially if they are girls. Parents tend to scold their daughters when they were late of going home much more when they were with teen age boys. Some parents would set rules for their teen age boys and girls to follow and this would suffocate them and make them run away from their parents. Teenagers need understanding and proper guidance in every decision that they are going to make. Being so strict wouldn't help to make them better persons. It needs patience, love and understanding to let them understand why we are doing these things for them. Once they understand our purpose, running away from home could be prevented.

Teen Pregnancy

This is another reason why teens run away from home. They are scared of rejection that's why they preferred to run away from home. Some of them don't want to bring shame to their families so they would run away. I had a student who wish to do everything she wants and her parents has a hard time controlling her. She keeps on transferring from one school to another because of the trouble she was into. Finally she became pregnant at age 15. She run away from home but her mom spend time looking for her and was able to find her. Her mother keep her in a safe place very far away from friends and paid somebody to take care of her until she will deliver the baby. When the baby was born, the mom of my student took the baby and announce to their friends around that she has a new adopted child. Who dare to question where did she get that child? So, everything was keep in secret until 5 years when the real mother was no longer able to keep her mouth shut. She can not keep her joy seeing her beautiful, talented daughter who has great achievements in school. She let the whole world know that the young adopted child of her parents was her own. She was just fortunate that her mother did not give up on her when she run away from home.

The home is where love abides so no matter what happens it is important to let everyone feel being loved and that running away from home could be prevented.