Getting to Know Your Teens!
At Safety4Kids we focus most of our attention on educating parents of very young children about the need for safe and healthy habits in their daily lives. Dr. Rich Lerner picks up our safety and wellness baton and carries it into the teen years, where the lessons learned at a very young age certainly pay off! But there are, of course, a lot of things to know as we navigate the teens, and Rich will be providing some great information and tools for parents.
Here is Rich's first blog entry...of many!
GETTING ACQUAINTED: PROMOTING "POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT" BY EMPOWERING TEENS
ALL young people have strengths. By virtue of the fact that childhood and adolescence is a period of enormous change and growth, every young person has the potential to have a better--healthier, safer, more positive--life path. Parents and other adults in the lives of youth--teachers, coaches, or mentors--can turn a child's potential for healthy development into reality.
The path to positive youth development is traveled when parents identify the resources or supports for health and well-being that are present in their homes, their schools, and throughout their communities and when they link these resources with their children. But, two questions come to mind:
--What are these resources for positive development?
--How do we align them with our children?
Resources for promoting safety, health and well-being can be found wherever young people live, learn, play, and work. These resources involve:
--Other people (parents, teachers, mentors, leaders of faith institutions)
--Community institutions (schools, libraries) and facilities (parks, playgrounds, sports fields, hiking trails; and out-of-school-time programs, such as 4-H, Boys & Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, or Big Brothers/Big Sisters)
--Opportunities for youth and adults to work together as partners on valued community activities (on chambers of commerce, on school boards, or on volunteer or service organizations)
--Access, for example, assuring safe streets and neighborhoods so that youth can travel to and from out-of-school-time activities, or providing transportation between these activities and home
In future entries, I will explain the three things that parents can do to make certain that these resources become building blocks for positive development for their teens. I call these "The Big 3:"
1. Positive and sustained relations between youth and adults
2. Opportunities for young people to learn essential and valued life skills
3. Youth participation in, and leadership of, valued family, school, and community activities
In my next entry, I'll be focusing on the instances of positive development, so stay tuned!
Rich Lerner is the author of the upcoming book "The Good Teen"
(c)Elena Elisseeva. Image from BigStockPhoto.com
Here is Rich's first blog entry...of many!
GETTING ACQUAINTED: PROMOTING "POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT" BY EMPOWERING TEENS
ALL young people have strengths. By virtue of the fact that childhood and adolescence is a period of enormous change and growth, every young person has the potential to have a better--healthier, safer, more positive--life path. Parents and other adults in the lives of youth--teachers, coaches, or mentors--can turn a child's potential for healthy development into reality.
The path to positive youth development is traveled when parents identify the resources or supports for health and well-being that are present in their homes, their schools, and throughout their communities and when they link these resources with their children. But, two questions come to mind:
--What are these resources for positive development?
--How do we align them with our children?
Resources for promoting safety, health and well-being can be found wherever young people live, learn, play, and work. These resources involve:--Other people (parents, teachers, mentors, leaders of faith institutions)
--Community institutions (schools, libraries) and facilities (parks, playgrounds, sports fields, hiking trails; and out-of-school-time programs, such as 4-H, Boys & Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, or Big Brothers/Big Sisters)
--Opportunities for youth and adults to work together as partners on valued community activities (on chambers of commerce, on school boards, or on volunteer or service organizations)
--Access, for example, assuring safe streets and neighborhoods so that youth can travel to and from out-of-school-time activities, or providing transportation between these activities and home
In future entries, I will explain the three things that parents can do to make certain that these resources become building blocks for positive development for their teens. I call these "The Big 3:"
1. Positive and sustained relations between youth and adults
2. Opportunities for young people to learn essential and valued life skills
3. Youth participation in, and leadership of, valued family, school, and community activities
In my next entry, I'll be focusing on the instances of positive development, so stay tuned!
Rich Lerner is the author of the upcoming book "The Good Teen"
(c)Elena Elisseeva. Image from BigStockPhoto.com
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