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What future for young people?
By Steven Dale
What future for our young people?
Young people, it is often said, are the future. We all think we know what this means. However, do we really give it much thought? Young people are indeed the future. If you have seen the film "Children of Men" (2006) starring Clive Owen, you will remember that a future without children is very bleak indeed and ultimately will lead the extinction of the human race. So, children are important and children become young people and eventually adults. This may all seem pretty logical and obvious but its amazing to me how little we take this truth to the next level. If young people are so important, why it that we take little account of them? We are very focused as a society on children and everyone loves a good photo of a smiling baby. However, once they get into their teenage years, children are often seen in a negative light. Very emotive and negative language gets used... teenage gangs, hoodies etc. Why is this? Granted, some of its justified. However, the vast majority of teenagers and older young people (early 20's) are law-abiding, caring and compassionate people. So many young people are involved in voluntary work, giving of their time and energy to their communities and good causes. o much money has been raised for charity by young people that its impossible to quantify the impact of their efforts. So, what are we doing to invest in our young people's futures? Well, there are two ways to look at this. 1) As parents we have a responsibility to invest in our children. This is important throughout their childhood and on into adulthood. The most important investment in our children we can make as parents is time, the true measure of our love for them. Study after study has shown conclusively that children whose parents invest time in them do the best educationally, socially and have fewer mental health problems in life. Its also what young people want. One study asked young people if they would rather have time with their parents doing mundane things or lots of money to buy things and do thing with their friends. Overwhelmingly they preferred the former. 2) Secondly, as a society we have a responsibility to young people. This includes education, safe environment for growing up, health care, training opportunities and the opportunity for work. These may seem obvious but the reality is often the opposite and not just in the developing world. Here in Britain, despite government initiatives over a decade we still have not eradicated child poverty and in some parts of Britain, violence is a major cause of death of teenagers, through knife crime. Child abuse is estimated to affect 10% of children at any one time. Thee are staggering facts. A regard opportunities for work, youth unemployment is high in many developed nations.Here in the UK it is set to treble, according to a recent report. So, young people are vital to all our futures but remains to be done to maximise the investment in them and their futures. All of us, whether as parents, teachers, health workers, social workers, voluntary workers, employers etc have a role to play and together we can invest in our young people and utlimately in our own futures. |
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The reason some people don't put more value on children is that there are just so many of them. This is unfortunate but that is the reality.
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