As I have been spending the majority of my writing time focused on completing my At-Risk Youth guide, I wanted to share yet another excerpt which truly hit home for me. I'd like you to take a moment and let what I have written resonate before you hopefully comment or leave feedback.
This next
excerpt is from a report entitled “Restorative Justice and The Youth Justice
System.” This report was prepared by, “The Centre for Research on Youth At
Risk”. Outside of the fact that I have been directly involved with the Youth
Justice Services of Scarborough, Ontario, I believe it’s essential that we
focus on what they are trying to accomplish. As recently as March 2012 we ran
an Anti-Bullying Certificate program with 12 kids between the ages of 12-17. We
specifically created this program in an attempt to provide these at-risk youth
with an alternative to being criminally charged. Each participant had been
formally arrested, but between the Police Services and the Youth Justice
System, they decided that it would be much more beneficial if these kids had an
opportunity to learn about their mistakes and actions before they are
introduced to the criminal justice system. I can only tell you that I am
absolutely thrilled that we were able to get this pilot project approved. The
kids that we worked with responded so well to our program I was literally
brought to tears. I guarantee you that any individual that spent 5 minutes with
some of these kids would never dream of punishing them, all you want to do is
give them a hug and tell them everything will be okay. The program was so
successful we will be running a minimum of two more before the end of the
calendar year. The community, educational, and parental support has been
overwhelming.
“In many cases, youth crime
takes an emotional toll on victims, witnesses, friends and communities. Victims
of crimes against the person or property crimes may experience a wide range of
reactions from anger and bitterness to fear and helplessness. The Youth Justice
Renewal Strategy while holding young people accountable for their actions is also
concerned with addressing the issues and concerns of victims in relation to
public safety. From a restorative
justice perspective, the most significant aspects of crime are that it
victimizes citizens and communities. The juvenile justice system should focus
on repairing this harm by ensuring that offenders are held accountable for
making amends for the damage and suffering they have caused. Large segments of the Canadian public
consider imprisonment as the only true measure of justice and the only yardstick
by which to measure whether society's response is "tough" enough. Yet
the reality is that much crime involves conflict and it is not possible to
create opportunities to resolve conflict or encourage healing for either party
with a focus on imprisonment and incarceration for young offenders. The world
over we question the value of raw punishment in socializing our children in an
attempt to ensure compliance. We need to apply this same questioning to our
public policy: Why hurt people who hurt people to show that hurting is wrong? The most important questions for restorative
justice do not focus on whether to punish or treat offenders.”
In my opinion they are right on point with what is currently the
attitude of most adults, and what NEEDS to happen in order for some positive
change to occur. What in the world would ever lead us to believe that using extreme
punishment with children would result in a positive outcome? I’m sorry to be so
blunt, and I do want to say that there are obviously exceptions to every rule,
but in general what were we thinking?
I believe it’s again
a psychological phenomenon that is actually responsible for this situation. As
we grow from youth to adult many changes occur, and one of the most significant
changes is in our psyche. To illustrate my point, we will use my life as an
example. If I was an extremely loud, aggressive, and violent youth, as I fully
transition to adulthood I actually start to repress who I once was the more I
mature, and the more I learn to control myself. In other words I now am a
parent to an almost 5 year old boy and even though I am so aware of my past,
there are many moments where my young son will act in the same manner I would
have, and because I can’t make that connection I instead get very angered by
his behaviour.
This is a very real and very regular
occurrence, and it’s due to this fact that I believe as adults we have forgotten
what it’s like to process like a child, and even worse we have forgotten what
it’s like to process things as a child who struggles. What if as a child you
didn’t really experience struggle, how could you effectively handle your own
child if they do? If we can be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that we
don’t have the answers for everything, maybe children would benefit more, than
if we try to come up with an answer merely because of our own egos. Would you
rather be honest with your child or would you prefer to always be right?
If we can take ourselves
out of the equation and try to understand that if a child needs help and maybe
we don’t know the best way to help, wouldn’t we be teaching our children the
best lesson available if we ourselves reached out for help? When it comes to
raising children wouldn’t you agree that we all want to provide the best we
possibly can for them? If you were never an athlete and your son desperately
wanted to play basketball but you never had, would you try to teach him
yourself, or would you want him to have the best basketball coach you could
find? If we can agree that we would all most likely choose the coach, why when
it comes to behaviour or emotions can we not have the same attitude?
Another alarming
statistic is that more than half (56%) of all victims of youth violence were
other youths. What that tells me is that a large number of innocent kids are
being negatively affected by the actions of others. Make no mistake about it,
if youth who are not at-risk are consistently exposed to youth who are at-risk,
there will definitely be fall out. If this is just another reason why we should
do everything in our power to help all these kids, isn’t it a pretty good one.
To be redundant yet again, if in a perfect world children were not exposed to
violent images, would you agree that would drastically reduce the number of
violent youth? At the very least I’m sure we can all agree that it’s a good
start.
We must do everything
we can to get at these kids as early as possible in order to begin laying the
proper foundation. If we look at raising our children in the same regard that
we’d look at building a house, again I’m certain we would all agree that
outside of proper planning, mapping, and all other pre-requisites have been
dealt with, the foundation is the most important part of the house. Now
obviously the planning and development stages of building a house and raising a
child require many of the same steps, but for some reason both are not what
they once were.
Unfortunately it
appears that in our current society we put more effort and careful planning
into buying or building a house, than we do when it comes to planning for a
baby. The ironic part of all this is that the quality of new homes today is
almost comparable to the children of today. What I mean by that is we are not
investing the proper time, patience, and effort in both areas and the results
are extremely obvious. The reason I chose houses and children is simple; houses
used to be built with quality craftsmanship, attention to detail, and several
other good old fashioned values, now it’s a race between multi million dollar
developers to see who can buy up the most land, build the most houses in the
shortest amount of time, and for the cheapest work available.
I’m certain that the
vast majority would agree with my description, with the exception of people who
can afford to hire the best builders around, but even then it is always a race
to see how many houses you can build, and it always comes down to who is the
cheapest trade. In other words, just because you are paying a fortune to a nice
businessman in a fancy suit to build your house, the actual plumbers,
electricians, drywall installers, etc. are most likely the cheapest trades
possible. It’s almost as if we have taken on the same mentality, if not worse,
when it comes to having kids, and raising them. I specifically made “having
kids” and “raising kids” as two separate entities because in my mind there are
many people out there having kids, but unfortunately there are not enough
people raising kids.
If we can’t agree
that our children need the best pre-planning available, the best blueprints,
and the best foundation, why would we ever be surprised when our children don’t
end up the way we hoped or expected? Would you honestly invest in the building
of a house without the best pre-planning, the best blueprints, the best
builder, and hopefully the best foundation? Maybe some of you answered no,
maybe some of us have no choice? Maybe that is something to discover during the
pre-planning stages. Most of us would agree that if during the pre-planning
stages it became abundantly clear that you could not afford this venture, you
would probably wait until you could. WHY WOULD WE NOT DO THE SAME WHEN IT COMES
TO OUR CHILDREN? It’s time we stop disillusioning ourselves and come to the
understanding that if children are not properly guided and raised the whole way
through, anything can and probably will happen.
We have children and
than we decide to let neighbours, daycares, nannies, and all other kinds of
people raise our children. Does it sound as awkward to you as when I write it?
I would sacrifice everything in order to properly raise and protect my child,
and I’d hope that the majority of parents out there felt the same. If we are
not around, or we are too busy, too tired, or too pre-occupied to properly
raise our children, what do we expect from them? There is no bigger and more
important role that you could ever play in life than that of a parent. If you
aren’t as dedicated to being a parent as you were to becoming a doctor, lawyer,
or truck driver, what do you think will be lacking in the long run? Would it be
your child, or your professional life? We are all so consumed with making
money, having enough money, and hopefully making things easier for our children
with that money, that we are forgetting that guiding and raising them is way more
important than being able to buy them nice clothes, the latest IPhone, and
money for the movies!
No comments:
Post a Comment