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By Jeremy | November 5, 2007
"...As the 21-year-old leader of the pack, I felt overwhelmed and unqualified to navigate the choppy waters. We tried everything to keep them engaged, from field trips and outings to chill time and sports. During a citywide scavenger hunt, I even introduced one girl to her deepest crush, Leonardo DiCaprio, at Toys-R-Us. Our meetings were interactive, with games and role-playing and discussions and debates, and even wrestling when none of the other adults were around. We did stuff together, both formally as a group and informally as friends. We hung out, shopped and ate together, played pool and video games, and watched T.V.
"Still, they claimed boredom. Worse, they manifested disinterest, indifference, and frustration, and that frustration was starting to boil over. Bored kids get themselves in trouble, and trouble was starting to seep back into the group.
"The pressure was rising, not so much from the storefront congregation, but from within. My confidence was shaken, and I was starting to feel like a failure. Building a group that didn’t yet exist was easy by comparison. But now, a year and a half after construction began, cracks in the workmanship were starting to show."
- From "Embrace the Mess: Why Youth Must Lead Now." Read the full story here.
Topics: articles, mentorship | 1 Comment »
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November 7th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Great stuff, amen. We need to impart to the next generation… and trust them to lead! Thanks for blogging this. I’ve been following your blog for awhile now and would like to invite you to visit our online magazine Wrecked for the Ordinary (follow above link) and consider submitting an article. I think you’ll find it relevant to what you’ve been saying for awhile.