Our Youth Problem

While the White House & Louisiana are trying to figure out how to deal with the BP oil spill, our little town of Southbury has its own crise du jour with the sudden realization that by golly, children in our town actually smoke, drink & pop pills?! As is pretty typical with "nice" towns, local parents, administrators, members of the media, members of the local government, voters - have either been in denial or simply been ignorant of what is clearly an enormous problem. A beloved local priest pointed out that in his almost 40 years of priesthood, he's never buried as many youngsters in one town as he has in his last 7 years in Southbury. That was the sound byte that helped knock off people's blinders. Now there's a flurry of activity as drug-sniffing dogs will make surprise visits to the high school, drug awareness forums are being organized, local officials are starting to examine what the community actually has to offer tweens and teens besides a decent education.

My involvement in all of this has been a natural one, since when we first arrived in the US in 1986 and I was entering my senior year in high school (Madison, NJ), I thought gosh, there is NOTHING for teens to do in suburbia. I went to a party hosted by a classmate. No parents were around but there was plenty of alcohol and public displays of affection. And I thought, of course kids are doing this, what else are they going to do? Hang out at the Friendly's or the YMCA? Till 9pm and then what? That was 24 years ago and the town we're in now is like that town was back then. Southbury has no cinema. No art or music scene (venue). No skate park. The Parks & Rec department has classes for tots and classes for moms and nothing in-between. And it's certainly not a place that welcomes kids to come and hang out. Youth & Family Services, an old house down the hill from the high school, is (as far as I know) limited to therapeutic treatment - as opposed to its counterpart in Newtown, where kids are welcome to hang out after school and even skateboard in the parking lot. On a positive side, our relatively new library is a beautiful building and does offer teen book clubs.

"This town is sooooo boring." "There's nothing for teens to do here." Utterances commonly heard from the teens I've either coached, played ultimate frisbee with, or had in my various programs. Of course, teens will always complain of boredom - it's part of their repertoire. But it's about time someone listens to them and works with them to come up with a solution. After all, this is completely an adult-generated problem. Our town, like most of suburban America, has a highly structured, competitive sports program starting from preschool age. Sports are a big priority here. One of the local elementary schools held a fundraiser this spring and raised over $20,000 - to aerate a field. At the high school, $400/night goes to paying for the lights to be on in the field for the evening practices and games. But not everyone is a jock.

Last week at our weekly ultimate frisbee game, we had 4 kids join us. One high school senior and 3 college students. They were sprinting, leaping up, making incredible catches, diving, sliding... And yet when we were chatting afterwards about the Youth Problem, one of them said "I'm not athletic so there really isn't much in this town for kids like me." I was speechless. Not athletic????!!!! The 2 hours that these kids just spent sweating it out in a sport that's as vigorous as a soccer match, and they don't think of themselves as athletic? But that's part of the problem. These days, if you're not willing to commit to frequent practices and games, which ends up being a huge commitment for the whole family, since lots of driving is usually involved - then you're SOL as far as sports go. I'm always thrilled when I see kids playing hoops at the local park after school, 2-2 or 4-4, because that to me is what sports should be about. It's not about paying mounds of money for equipment, playing time, league fees, etc. Then it just becomes another job. Sure, there's a place for that - for the odd kid who will one day have a chance at going pro, or for the kids who genuinely want to go to college on an athletic scholarship.

When I was talking to Father Joe about the Youth Problem, he said one of the biggest problems we have here is the OVERabundance of activities for kids. At first I was puzzled since I thought it was the opposite but then I realized he was referring to the obsessive sports culture here. What I envision as a big move toward a solution to the problems that plague our bored, under-stimulated and over-stressed out youth is a venue where they can channel their creative, social energy. I half jokingly said during a meeting the other day "kids today are in many ways better off living in the 'hood - at least then they have access to community centers such as the YMCA, Girls Inc, Boys & Girls Club etc." Kids are shepherded from one commitment to the next until they hit middle school. Then the non-jocks are weeded out, Girls/Boys Scouts is no longer cool, religious families can resort to faith-based youth groups but non-practicing families are left to their own devices, dance & theatre are available to the very committed (and the families who can afford these).

In the meantime, children are being given cell phones, computers, and plenty of time to use these unsupervised. Right now I have an hour when I should be vacuuming but instead I'm blogging. If I had had these tools at my disposal as a 15 year old, my adolescence would probably have been a very different one in many ways. We assume that kids are connected more than ever but the opposite has occurred. Their relationships with peers, family members and so on are increasingly becoming less about meaningful face-to-face interactions, working together to solve problems or discuss issues. I don't think they feel like people listen to them, which is an interesting dilemma since judging from what I see most people doing today as parents, they lead a completely child-centered existence while the kids are in grade school. The whole weekend revolves around soccer games and birthday parties. Discipline is inconsistent, parents are over-compensating because they feel guilty about the divorce, or the work hours. So kids run the show. And then they hit puberty and while they're dealing with all of that, suddenly the adults in their life are no longer supporting them. We're saying (maybe) get off the computer, get active - oh, but you can't skateboard anywhere. Do your homework/hang out with better friends/stop stressing, relax/stop being so lazy! Mixed messages, perhaps not role modeling the way we should be, and as a community, not following through on meeting the expectations we had set up for them when they were Little Leaguers with plenty of places and times to play. Now that Little Leaguer has decided baseball isn't for him, but he has so much potential, where can he explore that?