What do youth need today?

A friend of mine, Dee from the Glenfield Salvation Army, emailed me to tell me about an upcoming community meeting with politicians on the subject of youth.  Bloody politicians.  Always trying to capitalise on people's pain around election time.  I say we hold the meeting so we can take action as a community and tell the politicians to not bother turning up.  Folks, we don't need them.  They cannot fix this.  They can only get in the way.  This is a job for mothers, fathers, family, friends, and community.  Anyway, here below is my email response to Dee:

Awesome, thanks Dee.

I went to the youth prison (they call a stay there being "taken into residence") in Manukau yesterday.  I listened to (well meaning, highly trained, and very professional) CYFS staff intently.  I got some clues.

It is my opinion that:

1) Youth do not like themselves much.
2) A combination of Silent Generation, Baby Boomer, and X Generation attitudes is confusing to them (even the parents who have these things don't understand them).
3) The modern world is so fast paced.  Youth are attracted to the next biggest flashy and sensational thing.

All of this means that their lives are completely reactionary and never pro-active.  This is like building a house with no plans, each step merely a whim.  Youth need more downtime, more time to exercise creativity, and they need guidance to help them harness the results.  Music, art, ideas, exercise, meditation, prayer.  In short, leisure and time for inspiration/guidance and mentorship to help collect the 'fruit'.  But with all the noise of TV, iPods, iPhones, energy drinks, flashy marketing of the latest hip "must-have" thing, the almost neurotic obsession with 'friends' (and the idea that, somehow, hanging with friends is the meaning of life whether doing good or bad - the more anti-social behaviour* being performed the more valuable the badge of honour that is awarded for sticking together as friends - another sign of low individual self-esteem), it is very difficult for youth to find the solitude and quietness they need.  The answer to these stresses is all-too-often sought in the bottom of a bottle (or worse!).

Have you seen the movie called Karate Kid?  The boy's name was Daniel and his martial arts mentor was Mr Miagi.  Daniel was constantly wanting to jump ahead in his training but Mr Miagi always slowed him down and made him focus on simple basics.  Daniel would be drilled on the simplest of things over and over and over and over again.  Did he get annoyed with Mr Miagi's training?  Absolutely!  But Mr Miagi, gently, insisted.  Not only did this help Daniel develop technique but also his own style.  That is what youth need now more than ever!!!  Of course, in the competition at the end of the movie, Daniel won.  He also got the girl :)  The problem is that it takes time with an adult for this to happen.  And most adults have made choices that mean they don't have the time.  I cannot quite remember now but I am sure that Daniel's parents never even appear in any part of the movie.  What does that tell you?

What youth need is the best that the generations mentioned in 2 have to offer, based on youth's needs in the modern world.  For example, the Silent Generation's view on discipline is called for in the learning of skills that increase self esteem, but not in the area of employment.  I say this because skill development has not changed.  It takes dilligence and practice.  But the modern job market?  It is fast paced, full of change.  It is nothing like the Silent Generation preached after the depression.  Holding onto the security of one job for life is no longer the prescription, although complete dedication to the work at hand in the job you are doing this day is critical.  Youth have the ability to meet the fast paced challenges, but not the staying power for dedication (it is still developing).  So, when youth are rejected (for lack of staying power for example), it is just further proof to them they are no good.  Then the cycle of punishment starts, as well as the alcohol and drug abuse (escapism), then more punishment (even youth jail).  More proof the "system hates them".  They are quick to think, good at leveraging technology, etc etc etc.  But their attention span is short and so skill development is handicapped.  They (like much of the modern world) have no patience.  Neither did most of us when we were young.  So time has no chance to work it's magic.  As employers are mostly from older generations there is a gap in perspectives between youth and older people.  The older people try to respond to issues with discipline alone, and that does not work for the reasons discussed.  What we need to do is encourage youth as they show us what they can do, then carefully guide them so they can positively contribute.  Then they will like themselves better.  Then they will feel successful.  Then they won't need to depend so much on the drugs and alcohol.

I think that teenagers are born to rebel and we need to stop panicking about or reacting to it.  Rebellion is how they grow and it is just part of life (like the mother bird pushing the baby bird out of the nest except in reverse).  I think youth need access to personal mentors at least 20 years their senior so they can make decisions with mature input and still temporarily 'rebel' against their parents (it's that nest pushing thing again that forces the baby bird to fly.  Don't worry Mom and Pop, this is how your child will learn that nobody loves them more than you.  The last thing they need from you right now is a tighter grip.  What they do need right now is your loving patience.  Don't worry, our programmes rely on your involvement too).  I also think the modern fast paced world of double income and consumerism has gotten in the way of relationship formation at a young age that can help later on.

Freedom Fitness PLUS has programmes to address all of these issues.  Every, single, one.  We have great credibility for our ideas because they have worked well for youth for the past 18 months here on the North Shore.  When I listened to the CYFS guys they were able to analyse behaviour but unable to provide solutions like I have just articulated.  That is not their job anyway.  Their job is to asses and refer these kids to the appropriate providers (of which Freedom is one).  And I have to say we are very lucky in NZ to have CYFS people who are so good at what they do.  Really. 

Althought CYFS (and many others) don't have an issue, Freedom's biggest problem in the community seems to be that it is a business, which somehow makes it "evil".  Slowly I am convincing people that Freedom is a "Community Business", slightly less evil.  I think this 'anti-business' attitude is a hang-over from the Silent Generation and Baby Boomer experiences and is just people being people.  At the end of the day a business is neutral.  The attitudes of the people running it are what makes it good or bad.  It is the same with anything.  Money, guns, whatever you want to talk about.  It is not the thing which is good or bad.  The thing is neutral.  I think a good business will attract it's community through service.  I think having a business that exercises philanthropy is one of the biggest joys of being involved with one.  I think that Richard Branson understands what I mean http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10760853&ref=rss

* Isn't itinteresting?  We use a term like "anti-social" to describe an un-desireable behaviour, as if the behaviour alone is the proplem.  It isn't.  It is merely a symptom (or outcome) of the problem (a lack of individual self belief).  I think part of the reason we focus so much on it (thinking the anti-social behaviour is the problem) is because we have all been trained to tell our young children (when disciplining them as they grow in those early years) that we love them but we don't like a certain behaviour.  And something else.  When the child becomes one of our youth and engages is more serious forms of anti-social behaviour then we all, like some Supreme Court, go delving into the past history of the troubled youth, thinking we can source the problem that led to their anti-social behaviour.  And yet another thing.  We all want to fix the problem now!  The problem is the manifestation of history.  It might have happenned slowly and so likely the remedy will not be instant.  So we push the youth and things get intense, causing them to withdraw.  This leaves us frustrated, because we are only trying to help, right?

First thing is first.  There is a difference between efficiency and effectiveness.  Efficiency (with time, money, or whatever) is often our priority.  But thinking in this way is false economy.  What we really want is to be effective!  And, in terms of effectiveness, things will take as long as they take.  There are no short cuts.  So pushing too hard can be a bit if a waste of time (how ironic).

Next thing?  The history.  Why are we so pre-occupied with it?  Because we are trying to find the root of the problem.  Here is the thing.  The problem is likely to be the cummulative product of many interactions with many people as the youth grew up.  We are not going to get it all anyway.  The history might help us to understand how the youth got to where they are at, but I am not sure it has complete relevance to what their future could be.  It is true that history can help us predict an outcome.  So it helps us understand how the person got to where they are at right now and it helps us predict where they will likely end up if they keep going in the same direction.  But wait a minute!  The future has not happenned yet!  So that particular destination prediction is not set in concrete and can be changed (often without the full details of the youth's history).  Don't get me wrong.  I am a fan of history.  I read about it frequently.  History can (and often does) repeat itself (I think that is part of the reason for our pre-occupation with it when we work with youth).  If we don't like the history we read as a future we can change our behaviour and create a new future.  But, and this is the point, no-one knows every single thing that ever happenned in history and yet we can still change the future.  What I am saying is this.  If the youth does not want to come completely clean about their past we need not worry.  We (with their co-operation) can still help them change their path and hence their future.  And if they are not happy to come clean it means one thing.  They don't trust us.  If they don't trust us, it makes little sense to push for that past information because that will only further alienate us from the youth and the lack of knowledge probably does not prevent us helping them to move forward anyway.  Whatever the skeleton is if it needs to come out it will.  Life is like that.  But it will come out when the youth is ready (and most likely in a better position to handle it).  Hopefully, if we handle things right, we will still be around to help them get through it.  If not, the youth will still find a way.  So, it makes little sense to push too hard.  Let us gather the background knowledge we can.  Usually it is enough to get some bearings, figure out the youth has issues, and to start working on a number of them.  If you are plotting the third leg of a marine journey you don't need to know all of the details of the first and second leg.  Just having an idea of your current position and the final intended destination (as well as good knowledge of the likely conditions ahead) is enough to get started.

And the last thing?  The anti-social behaviour.  It is not the problem the youth is facing.  It is the problem we are trying to avoid having to tolerate as a society.  That is why we focus on it.  But when the youth committed the anti-social behaviour they were following a dream.  All we need to do is find out what that dream was and help them replace it with a new one that fulfills the original need without the negative (and probably with a positive) fall-out on society. 

Wayne
021 176 4266
09 282 3169