Years ago in the late 1980’s, I was at a conference in Hartford, CT, and someone in the audience asked the keynote speaker, Mrs. Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund this very question: “What’s wrong with the kids today?” She essentially replied: “There’s nothing wrong with the kids, who’s wrong are the adults. Kids act the way we do because we show them how to act and we let them act the way they do.”
Mrs. Edelman’s answer has stuck with me since then, and 20 years later, I am also asked this question often in my line of work as a professor at the Community College of Philadelphia, where I teach a course called Foundations of Youth Work, and in my work as Consultant working with the staff of youth-serving non-profit organizations.
I was thinking about this again last night when I was talking with a friend about the recent events in Congress that led to the shut-down of non-essential government offices and services. We were talking about how frustrated we were with the politician’s lack of compromise and inability to work together to come to a solution. I paused in our conversation and said, here’s another example of how we send mixed messages to kids about how we expect them to act. Kids act the way they do because they watch how we act. Who can remember telling a toddler that is fighting with another toddler to “use their words” to express what they want or need? And yet, what they see are adults using violence as a way to solve problems through wars all over the world and through the use of drone strikes. Who has invited organizations trained in peaceful conflict resolution into their school or after school program to teach teens involved with gangs how to mediate conflicts using non-violent solutions? And yet time and time again, what they see are adults on TV and the Internet (the news, reality shows, YouTube, etc.) beat each other up, and say horrible things about other people, and in some cases, even get rewarded for it. But to say that it is the media’s fault creates a distance from the issue and places blame on someone else. To be clear, most kids don’t even have to turn on the TV to see adults acting badly.
In my work I spend a lot of time asking adults: “What do you want for young people? Who do you want them to become?” In answering this question adults quickly come up with incredible lists. They want kids to be/become: leaders; confident; helpful; curious; responsible; respectful; trustworthy; good communicators…and on and on. I then ask, how they are helping young people to develop these assets/qualities? That list often takes a little longer to come up with. I probe a little and ask: Are you being curious when you are around young people, and how are you encouraging them to be curious? Are you someone who is trustworthy and demonstrating trust of others? Are you modeling effective communication with colleagues, and are you using effective communication with the young people in your life? If not, then it’s harder for us to ask young people to become or do these things if they haven’t seen someone around them do it, and harder still if they see us do the exact opposite of what we are asking of them. Ask any young person and they’ll tell you they don’t take someone seriously (i.e., trust) who asks them to do/be something, but don’t do/act that way themselves. Would you?
The Search Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets, is a useful framework to help get at those qualities we want to develop in young people, starting as early as age 3 all the way through late adolescence. The bottom line is, adults have to “do” better and “be” better. I’m not suggesting that adults have to be perfect, but we have to start with ourselves if we want a different answer to the question: “What’s wrong with the kids these days?”
Let me know: what’s one thing you can do to “do” better or “be” better?
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