Prompt: Some people believe that teenagers should be required to do unpaid community work in their free time. This can benefit teenagers and the community as well. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Some believe that young people should occupy themselves with unpaid community service in their spare time. Proponents of this idea present it as a beneficial activity for both teenagers and society as a whole. I do not fully agree with this statement, and in this essay, I will talk about this topic and explain why I disagree with having teenagers work for free during holidays, and how youth can participate in their communities while also benefitting more from their work. Ċ First, people who support having teens do unpaid community work argue that children and adolescents spend a lot of their time off on unproductive things such as playing video games, watching TV, or following social media. Those activities are not productive, and they can impede teenagers' growth mentally and physically as they do not provide meaningful mental stimulation or sufficient physical exercise. In their opinion, teenagers can benefit greatly from participating in outdoor activities and interacting with their community at large instead of spending their summer vacation in their rooms. This, they say, would turn them into socially responsible adults and improve their communication skills. Ċ On the other hand, a compulsory mandate that teenagers should occupy themselves with community work can have unintended negative consequences. For example, they can be exposed to dangerous situations during their community work and risk their safety. It can take a single incident of someone injuring themselves whilst doing community work for other teens — and their parents — to avoid community work altogether. Furthermore, children this age are already weighed down by many rules, school work, and home chores. Adding community service on top of their long list of responsibilities can be counterproductive and would leave little room for creative activities that teenagers enjoy. Ċ To conclude, although encouraging teens to do community service is a good concept, it has to be thoughtfully implemented in a way that teenagers volunteer on their own and for their parents to ensure that there are ways to ensure their children's safety and well-being in the meantime. I do not think that compulsory unpaid labour is a good way of doing it. Encouraging youth to be helpful members of society through financial means or through rewarding their school records can be a much better alternative.