Voices of Native Youth

Tag: Dropout

The Shocking Truth about being Young and Pregnant on the Reservation

Posted on by Nelcina Bekay

Native youth shouldn’t become sexually active at a young age because they are not ready for the consequences. The reality of being young and pregnant on the Rez is harsh. Young teens drop out of school. Having a baby might lead to unhealthy relationships, and the teen might end up having no support from the dad or their own family. It is a bad idea for native youth to become sexually active at a young age because lack of support, and men don’t cope well with the responsibilities of fatherhood at a young age. 

Native youth shouldn’t become sexually active at a young age. According to the Pew Charitable Trust 31 out of 1,000 Native American teenagers will give birth this year. Native youth have more babies than white teenagers. Native youth have babies because they become sexually active at a young age.

But pregnancy isn’t the only problem with sexual activity at a young age. According to Miranda Hitti on Web MD, a sizable percentage of sexually active teens noted negative consequences such as feeling used, getting pregnant, and contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Young teens are not mature enough to insist on using birth control. As a result of not using brith control, you get pregnant. Therefore, Native youth shouldn’t become sexually active at a young age because of the consequences. 

The Lack of Support for the Young and Pregnant on the Rez

The teen might have a lack of support from family or friends. For example, I have a relative who became sexually active at a young age, got pregnant, and now she’s having a hard time. She has a lack of support from family, and she has dropped out of school. All the largest public schools on the Navajo reservation don’t have a program for teen parents or pregnant students (verified by calling the three major high schools).

On the other hand, many publics school in Arizona have a program for teen moms. I think that the Navajo reservation needs a program for pregnant or parenting students. A girl on the Rez will receive little help from school, therefore the teen is more likely to drop out. 

Although 31 out of 1000 Native girls become pregnant each year, the Navajo high schools don't provide parenting programs for pregnant teens. #navajo Click To Tweet

Too Young to Cope

Although 31 out of 1000 Native American teenagers will get pregnant this year, high schools on the reservation don't provide teen parenting programs. #Navajonation #nativeyouth #nativeamerican #teenpregnancy

Native youth might not know how to cope with having a baby when they are still young. For example, my relative dropped out of school because she thought people were judging her. Therefore, she’s going to have a hard time. She stays at her mom’s house, she has no job, and she has no education.

An adult could have take care of the baby so my relative could finish high school. But she won’t listen. As a result, she has no job or education and is now suck with a baby to raise. As you can see, she is too young to make good decisions for her and her baby. 

Native youth shouldn’t become sexually active because of the consequences. A girl on the Rez will receive little help from family or school, therefore the teen is likely to drop out. My relative was too young when she had her baby, therefore she struggles to make good decisions for her and her baby. 

Why do Native Youth Have to Drop Out of School?

Posted on by Jorge Lopez

For the past ten years my family has moved around from apartment to apartment, staying with whichever family member had room to house us. This means that we often had to change schools and make new friends.  In trying to figure out why we moved so often, I realized that none of my family had finished high school.

Not finishing high school seemed to make it difficult for everyone to find steady jobs. I now understand that not finishing school would make my life more difficult. Most Native youth don’t get enough support from family or others. Native youth drop out of school because they are unstable emotionally, academically, and financially.

The Importance of Family Support

Most Native youth don’t get the support they need from families or others, and some families don’t encourage their kids. The Pygmalion effect helps explain this: people tend to perform at the level that others expect of them. Some families don’t expect their children to finish or go to school. Therefore, their kids don’t finish.

Most Native youth on the reservation don’t have an education because their parent(s) don’t put any effort into encouraging them to go. I have four older sisters that have not finished school because of lack of support and encouragement. They would have had a better lifestyle if they would have finished school. Therefore, my sisters would have lived up to their potential and would have had a good and stable life. Most kids don’t get enough support or encouragement from their family.

Homelessness Gets in the Way of Success

Most native families don’t have a stable home for their kids to finish school. A report by the Department of Housing and the Urban Development  estimates that between 42,000 and 85,000 Native people don’t have their own home or apartment on reservations. In other words, there are thousands of homeless Native youth. Whenever a kid a moves in with a relative or friend, it makes it harder for them to get to school or to start a new school. 

One difficulty with staying in a crowded house is that concentrating on school work feels impossible. This makes it hard to stay focused on school. Usually, when the house or apartment is crowded, it is harder to get homework done and kids will eventually start to get behind in school. I was close to being a drop-out because of the struggle I had and problems I put myself in. I lived in an unstable home because problems my family had. Therefore, I know how difficult it is for Native youth to finish school without a stable home/lifestyle.

Most people don't understand the barriers to success for Native American youth. Like laundry. #nativeamerican #poverty Click To Tweet

Drop Out or Go to School Dirty?

Laundry and lunch money shouldn't keep kids from an education. But that and other challenges often force Native youth to drop out of high school. #nativeyouth #graduation #poverty

Most Native youth don’t have the money for school and for their lunch. Most kids I grew up with didn’t have money for clean clothes and other things that were needed for school, so they decided to drop-out. Many kids don’t have the support for their financial needs. 

They didn’t have money that would get them a new set of clothes, pay for laundry, or buy food. For example, my friends lived on welfare but didn’t have the money for school. My sisters didn’t have money for necessities so they had to drop-out. My sisters also had to babysit us when we were little while my mom was working, so they got behind in all their classes.

Now that they are adults with no high school diploma, they have to work hard because of the low-paying jobs that they have for people who never finished school. Most kids don’t have the support they need when it comes to money.

Most Native youth don’t get enough support from families or others. Some families don’t encourage their kids. Native youth don’t get much support from families, either. Many Native families don’t have stable homes which makes it harder for kids to go to school and finish. Native kids don’t always have money for necessities that help ensure school success. Native youth are less likely to finish school and have a lower chance of being successful in life.

Jorge hates snow but loves snowboarding. He’s proud of his Navajo heritage

Native Youth Shouldn’t Drop Out of High School

Posted on by Marklynn Whitehair
Just because a kid doesn't know what they want to do when they grow up doesn't mean that they should drop out of high school. #graduation #success #nativeyouth #dropout

Native youth shouldn’t drop out of school and give up on their futures. Some kids think it is cool to drop out, but really they are making it hard on themselves. School may be  hard, but leaving school will make it even harder to achieve what you want in life.

Parents should help keep their kids in school, they should talk to them and show them that they care. For example, my friends and I finished the same elementary school, and when the time came to move on to high school, they only went the first week or didn’t go at all. Yes, there are times they wished they had stayed in school, but now it’s way too late for them.

According to an article in U.S. News and World Report, 23% of high school dropouts say that lack of parental support and encouragement, which made it easy for them to drop out. Yes, it’s true your parents still love you, don’t think they don’t. Parents  want their kids to have the life they never had (or the one they turned away from). Now they try to help their kids, but they see their kids have followed in their footsteps. It’s very hard for my friends’ parents to see them struggling then they could have been in school.

Your Friends Can Drag You Down

Some kids drop out because they hang out with the wrong crowd of people. They don’t know what to do after they get out of high school, so they just don’t go. They never even think about graduating, but they think their parents are just going to keep giving them money. I wish my friends hadn’t dropped out; maybe they could have been sitting right by me and finishing high school in 2019.

It’s sad it all had to come to an end because almost all of my classmates from 8th grade have already had a child or two. They have no job, so they ask their moms or dads for money. I see my former classmates struggling and living in hardship because they chose not to go to school and they tried  to live life on their own.

Too Late?

What’s going on in kids’ minds when they think about dropping out? Some friends told me that if they had a chance to go back to school, they would go for it. They realize now that they had potential. People don’t realize that they can do so much more than they think they can. They can push themselves harder than they thought possible instead of making the choice to lose out on opportunities.

Most of my friends talked about what they were going to do in high school, but they gave up on their goals. They had big dreams of becoming this and that, but because they dropped out of school, their dreams died.

It's important to stay in school because school can give you the tools you need to make a living. #nativeyouth Click To Tweet

When they dropped out they had to live with their parents and depend on their parents for money. It’s important to stay in school because it can give you the tools you need  to make a living. Now my friends struggle more than ever trying to provide for their own kids and themselves. They had big dreams, but they have let their dreams die because of their choice to drop out.

Marklynn Whitehair is a proud member of the Navajo tribe. when she’s not sleeping or drawing in class, she thinks about home and her family. But most of all, she thinks about her horses. She’s in high school and loves to play sports and spend time with friends.

Native Youth May Have to Pay for What They Don’t Do

Posted on by Kerralyn Sloan

The Effects of Alcohol on Native Youth

When I was little I would hear my family talk about alcohol and the way it made our family members suffer. I would constantly hear how bad it was from the people who would tell you to be drug free because of the conditions you would suffer if you used it. The things that they wouldn’t tell you was how much it began to hurt the people around the alcoholic in different ways.

As I grew up, I began to realize that I wish everyone would listen to the side effects that alcohol causes, such as the emotional problems, health problems like FASD, and financial issues.

The Emotional Toll on Native Youth

Native youth suffer from alcoholism because the alcoholics in their lives aren’t being a good role model for them. In one article it states that alcoholics tend to drink to try to ignore their problems. Children learn from their parents about how to deal with problems in their life. Children will learn that maybe if their parents are ignoring the problem and drinking and thus expecting it to go away, they should do the same.

In another article it says that children of alcoholic parents tend to deal with emotional and mental issues. I have a relative whose father drinks a lot, and now my relative deals with anger issues. The issues he deals with are caused by the overwhelming feeling that he doesn’t know how to deal with anything. He deals with his feelings of overwhelm by getting into fights.

Native youth may not have the role models to show them how to deal with life problems but that doesn’t mean that they will always struggle with, it just means they need help.

Toxic Homes Lead to Toxic School Experiences

Native youth pay the price for the mistakes and choices that the adults in their lives make. A Navajo student speaks out on the price that she may pay. #nativeamerican #nativeyouth #alcohol #choices #FASD #drinking #dropout #nativeamerican

Native youth are prevented from succeeding in school because of the toxic environment alcohol produces. When Native youth who live with a cycle of alcoholism turn to it themselves (or any other substance), they will suffer in school. Their grades will suffer, or mostly likely, they will drop out. A person who has a cycle of alcoholism or turns to drugs will basically suffer in school because of the drugs they’re using.

The cycle of alcoholism not only causes them to drop out or do poorly in school, it causes many more problems that hold them back from being successful. When a student begins to act violent towards their peers or adults in a school setting, they are given suspension or expulsion. Native youth are more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white classmates.

Being suspended or expelled causes Native youth to fall behind, another consequence of a toxic environment caused by alcohol. A toxic environment produced by alcohol could prevent Native youth from being successful in school because they are doing poorly in school, falling behind, or acting violently, which results in disciplinary measures that can cause them to fall even further behind.

The Financial Toll of Alcohol

Alcoholism affects Native youth as children not only emotionally and mentally, but financially, as well. Parents who abuse alcohol may blame their problem (and all of the financial problems that go along with alcoholism) on their children. Actions speak louder than our words.

For example, if we spend our money on alcohol instead of medicine, we show our children that we don’t care for them. When children are being shown that no one cares for them, it hurts them, it hurts a lot and causes them to doubt if their parents care for them.

But this isn’t the only way Native youth suffer. The other way Native youth have been shown to suffer is them having FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) which happens in 1.5 to 2.5 per 1,000 births among Natives, according to an article done by the Indian Health Services (IHS).

FASD can cause a number of disorders such as behavior, memory, and learning problems. Native youth don’t have control over these things because their parents decided to drink. The problems that may have affected them can cause them to suffer financially because they are looking for someone to help and they are angry at their parent for causing this. Alcoholism affects children by them being hurt emotionally, mentally, and because of their alcoholic parent or parents.

Before you drink, think about how your choice might harm future generations. #nativeyouth #nativeamerican Click To Tweet

In Conclusion

Alcohol affects Native youth negatively in many different ways. Alcoholics in the lives of Native youth have made them suffer with no role model to show them how to deal with life’s struggles. The toxic environment caused by alcohol makes students suffer in school. The alcohol that you drink will affect your children mentally, emotionally, and financially. Alcohol affects Native youth and makes them suffer.

Kerralyn is a Navajo girl who loves science and math. Her hobbies include reading, watching her favorite TV shows, and spending time with the people close to her. She wants to travel one day. Her pet peeve is being rudely awakened in the morning.

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