The adolescents described what they perceived to be the positive elements of the local community in contrast to perceptions about the more negative characteristics in the preceding sections. Pride in the neighbourhood and the ability to access adult resources were important social components of where they lived.
Alisha: ‘We have a good community base and living in harmony and things like that. But there are certain people who make the community a bit like um.. yeh the gangs and things that were known on the news for. You don’t see the good things at town in the news we are pretty much a big family but you don’t ever hear about that.’
Eugenie: ‘It’s quite friendly…. Well it used to be more friendly, a lot of people are still apprehensive to come out and things so you don’t see people around as much, but it is quite a friendly neighbourhood. Exactly where I live, like my little Close, everyone’s really close, like the other day someone two doors down from me, they had a BBQ and said everyone come in, they had a swimming pool out for the little kids so everyone get together, yeh it’s quite homely over there, if anyone needs anything, it’s okay to go to each other’s houses.’
Keshawn: ‘um, just don’t go round and if you see someone that looks a bit weird don’t go near them … like if they’re not acting normal or they just look
104 like drunk or something… cos they can do anything… get someone to help you, cos I know a lot of people around where I live..’
Josie: ‘I’ve lived in a close since I was 2, its quite quiet, we have street parties, not really anymore cause our neighbours moved away, everyone’s friendly. I think it’s quite a relaxed area, you won’t hear much traffic or anything, It's clean, I think it’s clean, there are parks, Sainsbury’s, pubs, pharmacists, doctors, dentists.’
Lingham: ‘The place is really quiet and the neighbours are really nice. Whenever we go to Pakistan, my Dad trusts my neighbour, gives him the key, takes care. Once when we were gone out, this is a few weeks ago, our lawn at the front, was really high, he wanted to mow it without us letting us know, comes and starts cutting, and for them sometimes we do something.’
Amy: ‘Because the […..] had a really bad reputation, now we all stick up for each other and we are all we all pull together, we prove everyone wrong. I think the community at the school is actually at the moment really, really good we all pull together, we prove everyone wrong. I think the community at the moment is really, really good.’
Louan: ‘If your neighbours were like bad people, that could be an influence on you, but if you have good neighbours that can be an influence on you as well, you learn from them. Our neighbours are kind, sometimes they come to ours and we go to theirs. One she lives on her own, her husband died, we
sometimes go there and help her.’
Eugenie: ‘Next door neighbour is a carpenter, mum cooks for everyone, …. my neighbours supported me when I was locked out and they looked out for us when there was a theft in the garage.’
105 4.6 Parent and family support
The value of family support for teenagers’ happiness was talked about by many of the adolescents. The importance of support and love of parents for life satisfaction was clear; the family was central to feelings of being taken care of and of feeling happy:
Josh: ‘Pretty satisfied with my life because of my family… cos my mum looks out for me, dad looks out for me, my sister looks out for me so… can’t really ask for more.’
Jack: ‘When I see my family happy that makes me happy.’
Emily: ‘My family are really supportive and that makes your life more happy, do you have the support of your family of your friends of your family it does make a difference a lot,, cos you know you can go to them at any time and tell them what’s going on and give you advice As the youngest child in my family I really look up to them….. I’m really glad to have a family that are very supportive of everything I do…. my siblings they pulled me aside and said ‘Look we
understand it might be a phase you are going through and all this but it’s better for you to think about it and what you want to be in life. Do you like just want to carry on in that way or do you want a better path for yourself?’
Eugenie: ‘I just started to feel really uncomfortable with the person I was and sometimes when I was at home I was like a bit secluded, like when it was time for us all to come together as a family or something everyone would be
laughing and I would be just the one who would sneak out or go upstairs or something. But my family have got me through it over the years and that’s
106 really important and I think every child needs a supportive family, otherwise without my family I wouldn’t be the person I am today.’
Family celebrations also mattered for adolescents.
Alisha: ‘I’m close to my nan and my granddad who lives here, cos I go to them every morning and after school, I see them, the 29th is the anniversary of my great granddads death, so on the 29th Dec we go round my nans house for a like second Christmas we just really celebrate his life and stuff it’s quite an emotional time.’
Keshawn: ‘If it’s my dad’s birthday we do something he wants, like for my birthday we went to Forest Park and they have an obstacle course…for my dad’s birthday we went on a skydiving course.’
Research has shown that young people who have warm and loving relationships with their parents have better socio emotional adjustment, including lower levels of
behaviour problems (Bronstein, Duncan, D’Ari, Pieniadz, Fitzgerald, Abrams, Frankowski, Franco, Hunt and Oh Cha, 1996) and this was substantiated by this small sample of adolescents.