Some Good News about Good Kids

The vast majority of children go all the way through school and never carry out a school shooting. They manage to never even get kicked out. Imagine that.

Too often we only hear horrible news or find tragic headlines about our youth. When Mike goes to school day after day, completes school work and comes home again, this isn't news worthy. So we rarely hear about the "good kids."

Of course, even "good" kids get into trouble occasionally. Kids make mistakes; that's why they're still children and not adults. All three of our girls, while being great kids overall, were involved in "incidents" in high school or middle school that were mortifying to us as parents, and resulted in additional discipline at home.

When I was in high school, a Christian school in northern Indiana, I too was once called to the principal's office. An accomplished oral surgeon who is a committed Christian and altruistically involved in his community says he spent so many hours in his principal's office as a kid that he had practically memorized the plaques and paintings on the walls.

Today I'd like to recognize and celebrate the kids who are not only NOT shooting up their peers or teachers but who arrive at school at 7:25 a.m. and sometimes don't go home til 10:00 p.m. and still manage to get A's and B's in their school work. I personally know dozens who represent literally many million more. They put in many hours on school extracurricular activities and also find time to volunteer in hospitals, nursing homes, to mentor younger children and take part in youth group.

I once helped judge scholarship entries and it truly makes you wonder how some kids manage leadership in five or six different organizations, along with participating in three varsity sports, and also staying on the honor roll. However, sometimes one wonders if some kids "pad" their applications with soft facts where going to one meeting and making one phone call comes out as "Chair of Environmental Steering Committee for Mecken Youth Group."

Following are accounts of young people who did some outstanding work, not for recognition or to pad a college or scholarship application, but because they truly cared about the situation they addressed:

Michael Zdep from New Jersey was only in middle school when two warring cliques were preparing to fight each other. With friends on both sides, he got the two groups together to talk instead, focusing on the need to work together. Rachel Koretsky, 14, from Pennsylvania, wanted to do something about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. She remembered her Rabbi reminding her congregation to adopt the stance of "Never again" when teaching them about the Holocaust. She founded an organization called "It Could Be Me" and raised over $14,000 for Darfur relief. Raven Peterson, 12, of Carmel, Indiana volunteered to tutor homeless children, and also collected books, school supplies and funds for the Indianapolis "School on Wheels" organization (which helps homeless children). Ana Maria, another student in Indiana, collected Spanish language books to send to her native Colombia to help educate illiterate children who often end up working in the cocaine fields prevalent there because they don't have other options.

In a 1998 USA Weekend survey on "Teens and Self Image," the 272,400 teens who took the survey (non-scientific, they voluntarily decided to fill in the survey), cited parents as the most important influence in their lives, followed (distantly) by religion.

Stanford University teen expert William Damon noted that "Religion is one of the most powerful influences on young people." There aren't a lot of other things that can accurately lower risk; where you live, IQ, wealth, etc. don't help as much as adding religion or faith to influence a child's life. A Gallup Poll showed that a little more than half of all teens (55 percent) go to religious services every week.

Prudential Financial Inc. started an award program recognizing about 7,000 youth a year at the local, state and national level for being youth volunteers. Another "young hero" award program honors kids who help to defuse violence and bigotry, teach conflict resolution, and promote dialogue. They honor kids who resolve conflicts, play fair, stand up for what is right, and work to get along with diverse friends and neighbors.

Sounds like a few adults could take a few lessons- myself included.

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Contributed by Melodie Davis: MelodieD@MennoMedia.org Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way