You HAD To mention kids didn;t you? They are my ONE Achilles Heal. I cannot stand to see a kid cry or be left out or get bullied by someone bigger. My heart goes out to them all.
I used to run a website that catered to Alternative People ... Gay people. I had the sports games that were going on locally and the movies and plays that were of specific interest and a page devoted to the Original Gay Terrorist ... he was called a Rebel back then. And I had a teen page where gay kids could play games and interact with their online friends and take quizzes and stuff. I would get hundreds of emails during the day so I started to work on the site at night. But I would still get kids (17-25 usually) who were having suicidal thoughts or were dealing with personal dilemmas like gangs and drugs and stuff and I got to talking with a lot of them and seeing the stress that they had to go through each day just to live on this planet and I would cry when I typed to them on emails or IM's. I found that most of them were from broken homes or their dad lost his job or something wasn't right and these kids were so loving and would do almost anything to help their families. I would spend hours with them online giving them solution after solution ... hoping that one would suit THEIR lives. Out of 8 suicide potentials NONE died on my watch. Many of them thanked me and it was the greatest feeling in the world to hear this young soul thanking me for sharing some of my experiences when I was young.
The thing that ticked me off the most was that these kids could not socialize or anything. If they were under 18 they were taboo. No one on the internet would talk to them except for pervs and the youth centers all over this country have mostly been built by well meaning old people who NEVER seemed to ask the kids what THEY Wanted in their rec center. Ping pong and pool tables were fine in my day but kids then wanted videos and to be able to play each other in sports.
What kids need, IMHO, in to be heard. They want their viewpoints to carry some weight. If we were to treat them more like adults and less like "children" they would respond much better. We need to LISTEN to their needs ... listen to their wishes ... and give them a childhood that they will remember AND appreciate. Cities spend millions on roads and parks but what about the baseball field? How much would it cost to put in a Video Arcade with a volunteer to watch over it and provide change. And what about the kids who can't afford a quarter to play? Couldn't we make a couple of the machines FREE?
Now that the economy is terrible, there are many counselors out of work. What if we could get them to DONATE their time to the kids and have "shrink sessions" with them FOR FREE! Get into their heads and find the smart ones and put them where they can learn the most and do the most good. Talk to the troubled kids with home problems and find a solution. Have a special fund that helps underprivileged kids and possibly their families. Make the kids "off limits" to gangs. Make it so that ANY kid who hangs out with a gang will put the GANG in peril by bending the laws to prosecute gangs who have kids in their ranks. Make it no longer COOL to be in a gang. Find some business execs to donate their time to teach kids how to start their own businesses or get better jobs when they hit the work force. Instead of working the counter of McDonald's teach them to MANAGE it! Give the kids some responsibility. They just want to be treated with respect and dignity ... just like the REST of us!
If the community shows their kids LOVE ... the kids will return it in kind. Kids are people too. Prove it to them that we know that and that we respect them and watch what a tremendous difference a little bit of attention makes.
It's gotta be a LOT cheaper to outfit a NICE Youth Center that caters to what KIDS want ... rather than having to clean up graffiti and dead bodies in the streets.
Children Are Really Excellent (C.A.R.E.) or whatever you want it to say. If each town figured out how to use the initials W.E. C.A.R.E there would be no gangs or guns or dead kids in the streets.
I AM
Dartagnon