YOUTH MATTER: Creating Assets for Youth Benefits Seniors | Opinion

I write many times about various aspects of helping to ensure that our children and young people grow up safe and healthy, with access to a good education and opportunities for positive experiences, which help them all to become caring and productive adults who contribute to our communities. It’s all about youth! Well, today I’m changing the subject: it’s about how positive youth development benefits adults, especially the elderly!

Let me put this into perspective by sharing a bit about myself. I’ve done many, many trips around the sun. I have had and continue to have many opportunities to volunteer and support others: what a blessing it has been! I’m a mom to two amazing adults, “Momoo” aka Grandma, five amazing grandkids ages 4-24, and two precious great-grandparents. I am blessed to have friendships with people of different generations and backgrounds, some of which span decades, including a few that date back to 4th grade. It’s a long term friendship!

These particular factors give me the freedom to advertise that I am a youth development expert! This in no way indicates that I did everything correctly. On the contrary, many times I learn from what I didn’t do, or maybe I would have liked to do differently. In other words, I’m an ordinary person much like most of you reading this column! Yet, I am a self-proclaimed youth development expert…and so are YOU and it happens because we have lived life. I am grateful for many areas of expertise, including those I share below.

Expectations and consequences: From the time children are toddlers and throughout their childhood and adolescence, it is only fair for them, fair for you as parents and fair for the community as a whole that we express make personal and community boundaries and expectations clear through appropriate words and actions. at young age. Equally important, we need to #1 articulate the consequences of not meeting those expectations and #2 follow through on the consequences. I’m not talking about drastic measures, but things like withholding treats or rewards when kids don’t live up to their expectations or responsibilities. If we continually back off, whether at home, in school, or in social activities, we are not teaching our children anything. Instead, we make them understand that they can make or break the rules as they please. It’s not healthy for anyone.

Treat others with kindness and respect: We are not clones; each of us is unique and different from everyone else on Earth. Because our hair color, skin color, ethnicity, culture, religion or spiritual beliefs, upbringing (and this list is virtually endless) is different from another’s does not make us less or more than another person. Nor does it make us more or less worthy of respect. For our young people to learn, it is essential that we demonstrate this belief not only in our conversations, but especially in our interactions.

Help others: It’s such an easy activity to start when the kids are quite young. Once the habit of helping others is established, actions and types of helping develop as children grow. They reap the joy and rewards of helping others. Aid also turns into volunteering and advocacy. Young people learn that they can really make a positive difference for others.

Peaceful conflict resolution: Unfortunately, we seem to be moving further away from learning both to understand others and how to peacefully negotiate compromises and change. We can’t stop working on it. Despite cultural, social, physical and other differences, there are so many kind, good and fascinating people in this world. If only we spent more time finding commonalities and sharing uniqueness rather than focusing on differences, just imagine the change in acceptance and understanding!

Set a good example in all areas of life: For our young people, we must live a “do like me” life. It can’t be a situation to do what I say. Our children learn to be kind, to show respect and courtesy, from the actions we show them.

If we show the children of today, whether they are our own children, grandchildren, neighbors or other young people in our lives, how to negotiate these circumstances, we will most certainly reap the rewards. We have the joy of watching them learn and practice what they have learned by teaching and demonstrating these traits and skills for the next generation. While they may add twists to certain traits and skills, we can see that the generations to come are quite capable of handling this world as we move forward into the future…and we make way for these next generations of youth development experts. It doesn’t get much better than that, so yes indeed, we older generation folks certainly benefit from positive youthful development!

As I close, I have a request from you. I would certainly appreciate hearing your thoughts and suggestions to help prepare our youth for adulthood and success in life. Please email me at [email protected]. Thank you.

Visit the Youth Count Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/YouthCount for advice and encouragement on demonstrating positive attitudes and behaviors. For more information on the 40 Growth Assets, building growth relationships, or for appropriate materials for home, work, school, or church, email me at [email protected].