Young people from Homewood usually drop by our house just about every day. One of our favorite things to do is to welcome the kids into our home and ask how their days went. Sometimes we only have the kids stay for a couple of minutes before we send them on their way to resume their life journeys. Sometimes we'll invite the kids to visit with us for a while and stay for dinner, like we did tonight with some of the boys from the neighborhood. Julie's meatloaf, which was originally intended to feed four, somehow turned into dinner for nine (OK... a slight boost from impromptu grilled cheese was needed to fill out the meal for everyone).
When we visit with kids from Homewood, we are building relationships but we are also being very intentional about the time we spend with them. We do a lot of listening, and the kids are curious to know how we are doing. When the kids tell us things, we rarely try to fix their problems or trivialize their triumphs by dumping a bunch of principles on them. We try to connect with kids at the heart, or spirit, level. Life is a journey, and we just happen to be a part of their journey and they happen to be a part of our journey. We help to orient one another in God's Story. That's essentially what mentoring is.
Modern young people have very few people who try to connect with them at a heart level, and as a result many young people go through life either lost or by playing it safe. This point is where many programs miss the mark. People come up with great ideas for programs to help kids, but the programs often miss the all important goal of connecting with kids at the heart level. I'm convinced that most programs aimed at helping at-risk youth don't fail because they're not organized... they fail because they miss the point of connecting with the hearts of kids. That's why leadership matters... because implementation in youth programming really matters. A bunch of words on a piece of paper describing a youth program or development model are just a bunch of words on paper unless the adults involved actually do the hard work of connecting with the youth at a heart level over a long period of time. Modern young people are searching for meaning in life, not programs. There are no quick fixes when designing programming for at-risk youth. All programming should stem from a solid foundation of relationships that are connecting at the heart level. Too many people build programs first, and then they try to build relationships with the youth last. That's a much harder road to travel when it comes to transforming the lives of at-risk youth.
One of my good friends, Jay D'Ambrosio, shares some great insight on this subject in his book Rethinking Adolescence. As an experienced educator and counselor, he understands how important it is for adults to address adolescents at the heart level and not just the mind or body as many institutions that attempt to reach young people are in the habit of doing. We can help young people to find their hearts, and their meaning in life, by joining into their journeys. He writes, "The young people we work with and love must be made aware of the importance of the journey, and that life is more than just random, meaningless events. They need to know that the journey is good, even if it is often painful. Their journey, their story, as Tolkien suggests, intersects with the stories of countless others, comprising the Great Story begun at the moment of Creation. We have an opportunity to intersect with and influence the journey of the young, and they will in turn add to our own story, and we will become better for it. They need to know that the journey will reveal their true identity, the person who the world so desperately needs them to be. We will begin to see this as well." Maybe that should be LAMP's new tag line: "LAMP mentors help young people find meaning in their journeys so that they can be who the world desperately needs them to be." I guess that's more interesting than a tag line like: "LAMP... just another program trying to help kids with principles, planning, data and the latest models in youth development."
3 comments:
Once again I've gotta tell you how much I love reading your blog. I feel you have it totally correct in your dealings with the neighbor kids.
Thanks Chad! Keep up the good work with what you're doing on the north side. The relationships that you are building are significant.
Bryan
First, I LOVE the new proposed tag line for LAMP! I really think it should be made the official one!
Second, the more 'twenty-somethings" I talk to, it's not just at risk adolescents who are feeling lost. It seems that there is a whole generation (or maybe two) that have lost heart, hope, and motivation. I've found myself apologizing for my generation's dropping the ball in this - and we're the ones, more than anyone else, who have to step up and address this.
John V
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