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Give Kids A Chance
- by Tim Jordan, M.D.
Are you aware that
the most under used, wasted natural resource in this country is not the
elderly, or parents, or any minority group. It is our children. So many
great ideas, so much energy, so much boundless idealism. So much
limitless potential. Why don’t we enlist our children’s help more often?
Much of the answer
lies in some old beliefs we have about children that we haven’t let go of
yet. Beliefs like children should be seen and not heard. Beliefs that say
that kids are just lumps of clay that we need to mold, inferring that
they don’t have a spirit and a purpose of their own. Beliefs whereby
parents say that there is only one way to do things in this world, and
that’s the right way, which is naturally my way! It wasn’t really until
the late 60’s and early 70’s that professionals like Dr. T. Berry
Brazelton convinced us that infants could not only see and hear but also
actively elicit responses in their parents. So our limited and limiting
understanding of children’s emotions and capabilities is, in a sense, in
it’s infancy.
So many times our
kids are the last person we turn to for help, information, or support.
For instance, a friend of mine called me last year from Detroit for some advice. At her son’s
high school there had been some fights between white and Africa-American
students, creating some fairly intense racial tension. This friend wanted
some help in creating a retreat for the teens that would bring both sides
together to do some conflict resolution and community building. My first
question to her was, "How have you involved the teens in creating
this retreat?" There was a pause from the other end, then a
guilt-ridden "we haven’t at all, yet." Well, after our
conversation, she created a team comprised mostly of students to organize
and brainstorm this retreat, which turned out to be incredibly
successful. But just think of the opportunity for growth for the students
that would have been so carelessly missed for the simple reason that we
don’t value our children’s input and contributions. And, therefore, from
a child’s perspective, we don’t value them.
Several years ago a
13 year old baby-sitter, Melody, who was an only child living with older
parents used to hang around our house a lot. One day my wife, Anne, asked
her if she could help balance our checkbook. Well, you would have thought
she had been given a million dollars. Anne showed her how and for the
next year Melody would come up to our house once a month and tackle the Jordan’s checkbook. And the look on
her face when she left our house was worth a thousand words. Happy,
proud, valuable, responsible. Something as simple as balancing a
checkbook can bring a tremendous sense of satisfaction and a sense of
"I’m contributing something worthwhile" to a child.
So become aware of
all the endless ways that kids could be valuable to us and their
community. Volunteering at a preschool; serving meals at a homeless
shelter; picking up litter in your neighborhood; saving up money together
as a family for some philanthropic purpose; doing some yard work for
grandma and grandpa; asking their ideas or opinion about a problem you
are working on. There are large and small opportunities everyday to give
kids a chance to be valuable, contributing members of society. And not
only does the family and community benefit, but the kids benefit tenfold
as well. There is no better way to support kids in feeling good about
themselves than to help them be of service to others. Someone once said
that you reap what you sow. If kids are getting out of themselves and
sowing love and service, then they will reap feelings of love and peace
and fullness. In this day and age of so many questions about teen anger,
teen violence, teen pregnancies, and teen suicides, perhaps the best
answers lie with the kids and teens themselves. Let’s give kids a chance!
With his wife, Anne
Jordan, R.N., Dr. Jordan owns and runs the Children & Families, Inc. of St.
Louis out of which he operates his private practice, in addition to
teaching and training instructors for numerous courses including, Redirecting
Children's Behavior (RCB); Redirecting for Cooperative Classrooms (RCC),
a six week course for teachers; Kids Camp and Teens Camp, a summer camp
that encourages leadership, self responsibility, and high self-esteem.
Children and Families, Inc. is here to teach and support you in new ways
of growing. A wide variety of courses is offered by Children and
Families, Inc., including the areas of parenting, personal growth,
marriage enhancement and self-esteem camps for children and teens.
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