The only way to solve the increasing crime rate of young offenders is to teach parents better parenting skills. To what extent do you agree?

40 minutes, 250 words at least.

Here’s another variant of this question that appeared in a September 2017 exam: Parents have a greater influence on their children’s future success than schools do. Governments should, therefore, provide ”parenting training courses” rather than ”teacher training courses”. Do you agree with this idea?

Answer:

The juvenile delinquency (1) has been on the rise during the recent years. It is sometimes thought that in order to address this problem, parental education for the improvement of their parenting skills is essential. (2) I totally agree with this idea since if young individuals spend most of their time with their parents with whom they feel safe, and learn from them (this pronoun refers to parents while all others refer to young individuals. You can comfortably avoid this pronoun.) how to overcome problems in their lives, they will be less likely to get involved in criminal actions. (WRONG use of pronouns THEM and THEY in this sentence – 3.)

1. I strongly suggest you not to find synonyms for the NOUNS mentioned in the question statement. It is really hard to find a perfect synonym and if you use a wrong synonym, you will lose bands in the LR part. Juvenile delinquency is not the same as youngsters committing crimes. Juveniles are those who are below the legal adult age (18 years in most countries). Youngsters, on the other hand, can include those who are 22 years old. Youngsters are increasingly indulging in crimes these days.

2. You’ve used the word ‘parent’ twice in the same sentence. Note that you can comfortably avoid the struck off portion without altering the meaning of the sentence. Also, every pronoun must refer back to a noun. In your sentence, THEIR does not refer to any noun. There is no mention of parents before their.

3. The pronoun family (THEM, THEY, THEIR) can refer to one noun only. Either use them to refer to young individuals or to refer to parents. However, you mixed their use.

Loss of task response in the introduction – The question is about parental skills. You’ve mentioned young individuals need to spend time with their parents.

To begin, (you’ve already begun with the introduction) the main skill that parents ought to learn is how to communicate with their children, particularly teenagers. In this way, it is more likely that children will spend their times with their parents and enjoy doing mutual activities with them. (Will this reduce crime rate? Task response. 4) For instance, instead of spending most of their free time on the internet chatting with their friends or playing a game, they will join family activities or even having small chats with their parents about their daily activities.  (how will this prevent criminal activities? Please state this clearly to develop coherence (logic). I’ve done this in the next sentence.) Therefore, many situations which may lead to crime exposure can be avoided. This will eliminate any possibility to indulge in destructive activities such as drugs and theft with their friends.

4. The main skill that parents ought to learn is how to communicate with their children, particularly teenagers. This will give them the ability to understand the needs and desires of the children and take preemptive steps to stop any tendency to commit crimes.

It is also imperative that children feel safe being with their parents and share their personal and school issues openly with them. (their and them should refer to only one noun – children.) Parents are required to learn how to develop this close and secure relationship with their (avoid writing this pronoun to prevent pronoun mistake) children so that they can feel safe enough to communicate their concerns and problems with their parents. In fact, when parents are aware of their children‘s issues, it is they are more likely to intervene when it is required to avoid further damages in their lives. (Does this prevent crime? Task response.)

NOTE that your idea statement is in the second sentence (learn how to develop ….). The first sentence is an explanation of the idea statement. The explanation should never be placed before the idea. I’ve switched their places below.

Let me restructure your paragraph: Moreover, parents need to learn the skill of building trust with their children. (The following sentences EXPLAIN how “building trust” helps in avoiding crimes.) Youngsters must feel safe with parents to clearly express their problems. This will allow them to share issues such as bullying in school or possible use of drugs which may compel them to indulge in criminal activities.

Finally, parents ought to teach (The question is on teaching parents. Not on teaching children. Task response suffers.) their children how to approach and solve problems and conflicts in a constructive way. This is mandatory skills which help them to solve any issue in the primary stage before it turns to a detrimental serious condition. For instance, many youths turn to crime when they are being bullied by other children and failed they fail to deal with it.

Restructure: Finally, the parents need to learn ways to teach their children about conflict resolution. If parents are not aware of possible conflicts their children face every day, they can not prevent their children from venturing on the path of crime. For example, every youngster wants acceptance from her peer group and she can do anything, even illegal activities, to gain acceptance. If parents do not know this and understand the ways to resolve this conflict, they will fail in protecting their child from crime.

In conclusion, in my opinion, learning skills of parenthood will equip parents with the abilities to build a close relationship with their children so that their children will feel safe to share information with them and will learn how to cope with the harsh condition in their lives. (wrong use of the future tense. X so that Y. Both X and Y have the same tense. Usually, present tense.)

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