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“Kids These Days . . .” There’s Something You Can Do

By Jeff DeVoll
Guest Columnist

What’s wrong with kids these days? You hear it all the time; at least I do. As the director of a non-profit organization focused on critical issues facing teenagers, I spend a lot time talking to adults about teenagers. When I talk about the problems that students are dealing with in our society and how to find solutions, many adults take a deep breath and think about news from the previous evening. With a sigh, they make some tired statement that implies a “What’re we gonna do?” dismissal that seems to conclude that there are some problems so big that you cannot do anything except get used to them. “Things will just get worse” seems to be the common wisdom of the day.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only can things get better, things are getting better in many ways. For instance, teen pregnancy became one of the most startling problems of the last half-century. In addition to the common sense facts about most teenage girls just being to young to be mothers, the statistics have constantly shown the decrease in stable homes, the decrease in the involvement of fathers and the increase of poverty, crime and future illegitimacy rates. However, despite an increasing level of sexual marketing aimed at ever younger teenagers, teen pregnancy rates are diving. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, teen pregnancy rates decreased by 28.6% during the last decade. How are pregnancy rates dropping in the face of escalating sexually charged media and entertainment choices? Teenagers are creating their own culture of self-respect. While the effectiveness of safe sex and abstinence programs are debated, there is no question that teenagers are deciding to delay irresponsible sexual activity that leads to unwanted pregnancy.

Pregnancy is just an example of one of the many problems associated with teenagers, with teenagers themselves helping to solve. And that fact not only applies to decreasing the negatives of teen culture but in increasing positive outcomes from teen culture.

Last April 15-17, millions of teenagers participated in National Youth Service Day, the largest service event of any kind in the world. They tutored young children, registered new voters, educated their communities about good nutrition, distributed HIV/AIDs prevention materials and met many more community needs through their service. The goal of National Youth Service Day is to place youth on a life-long path of service and civic engagement and to create community leaders. At recent event I attended in Washington, D.C., Steven A. Culbertson, director of national youth service day, made the case for the good that teenagers can do in society. “I hear people saying that this is the worse generation of teenagers ever. I think it may be the best...”

Many of those of us who are working with teenagers agree. In the last five years, our organization has produced training conferences attended by thousands of students from hundreds of schools, and we have seen those students improve their own communities in so many ways.

It’s true that there are many serious problems facing teenagers today—no one denies that. But among the teachers, social workers, church youth workers and others who serve teenagers, there is a growing sense that the solution is investing time and resources in training those teenagers to help other teenagers solve those problems. While many teenagers are doing better than ever, many are still without the resources and personal tools to overcome their environment. The key is connecting those two groups.

You can help do just that. Volunteer at a school in your community. Get involved in a mentoring program (see www.mentoring.org for mentoring opportunities). Become a sponsor in the youth program of youth church or community youth center. Promote National Youth Service days. It’s coming April 21-23, and there are individual grants of $200-500 for NYSD projects (www.ysa.org/nysd for more information). You could help make a change. Millions of people just like you are already involved—and it is working.

Or we could all just keep shaking our heads — kids these days . . .

Jeff Devoll is the director StudentReach, Inc. a non-profit organization working with students and schools through student service clubs and school assembly programs.