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The We Generation

Praise for The We Generation

Chapter 1 Excerpt of The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids

The We Generation

As youth culture seems to grow more self-centered and obsessed with “Me,” The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids gathers the stories and research to show that, in fact, children today are as willing as ever to think “We.” Like generations before them, children and adolescents want to be noticed for the contributions they can make. What they need, though, is compassion and encouragement from parents, and some careful attention to their most important connections, those made at home. Through inspiring stories taken from Dr. Ungar’s clinical work with children, youth and families and research gathered from around the world, he shows how the close connections kids crave and the support adults provide can help kids realize their full potential – and how it can also protect them from the dangers of delinquency, early sexual activity, and drug abuse. At a time when global issues and activism have come to the forefront, We Generation offers a fresh, optimistic way of thinking about our children’s true nature and potential.

In The We Generation parents will read about ways to help children of all ages change from self-centred kids to caring contributors to their communities. Children can grow beyond self-centredness if we show them how. This book asks parents to consider:

• What can we do as adults to help young people think We instead of Me? Our children today need and want guidance from their caregivers.

• How can we build our homes, communities and schools so that young people feel connected? The structures we provide make a difference. Children are more likely to think We when provided smaller homes, closely knit communities and caring schools that make connections easier.

• How can we protect our children from the dangers of Internet predators, the glorification of violence, or the emotional crush of busy families? The compassion we show our children in our homes inoculates them against the dangers they face beyond our front doors.

Read more about The We Generation in an article on Commitmentnow.com here.

Read a short selection from the first chapter of The We Generation here.
 
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Praise for The We Generation

“Michael Ungar's We Generation is a thoughtful, practical and inspiring book that helps adults, especially parents, raise children who are compassionate, responsible, global citizens. Moreover, there is a bonus: by using the book's carefully delineated building blocks, designed to nurture kids to become part of a we--not a me--generation, adults will find that they are more connected and content themselves.”
Kaethe Weingarten, Ph.D.
Author of Common Shock
Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School


“A must read for parents, educators and anyone else who cares about kids. Michael's book is rich in advice and anecdotes, showing how we can help kids avoid the trap of 'me, mine and more,' and embrace instead 'us, ours and enough.' "
Barbara Coloroso
Author of Kids are Worth it! and The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander
 
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Chapter 1 Excerpt
The We Generation: Raising Socially Responsible Kids

On the streets of a city that is just big enough to have city-size problems, a group of girls hang out in a downtown square. Many come from good homes. Hanging out on the street is an easy way to find adventure. They have tattoos on their backs and shoulders and piercings in their tongues and eyebrows. Their hair has streaks of red and magenta.They use the f-word without apology and brag about sex. They smoke pot. They want to fight. They like the way the couples strolling through the square on warm summer evenings stare at them, then quickly move on. The girls know people are on edge when they’re around.

The girls will all eventually go home. Christina will slip through the backdoor of her 2,700-square-foot palace, with surround-sound televisions and four bathrooms, one for each family member. She will call out a half-hearted, “I’m home” to her parents, who went to bed hours earlier. Perhaps one of them will wake up long enough to come downstairs and tell her, “Good night, now,” before heading back to bed, and that will be Christina’s cue to wander into the kitchen and find a plate of leftovers in the fridge from the dinner she missed. She’ll eat by herself at the kitchen island. Still slightly stoned on the weed the girls were given by the men they teased, she won’t bother to reheat the plate but will just nibble a bit on the pork chop, tough and overdone from waiting for her. The quiet makes her feel sad. She gives her old dog a pat, then climbs the stairs.

She feels so alone. She wants to talk to someone, but the people who matter most are the ones she’s pushed away. Her relationship with her parents is a tangled mess of demands and gnashing of teeth. As she passes their room, she thinks about going in, waking them up, sitting between them, talking about the rude things she heard, feeling safe and perfect again. Instead, she goes to her room and locks the door behind her. She stretches out on her bed, the room spinning from the effects of the pot she smoked, straining to hear the muffled snores of her father in the next room and murmurs from her mother who lies next to him.

Lying on her bed, Christina closes her eyes and thinks back to the social worker who visited the girls on the street tonight. She was in her thirties. With jeans that had no rips. And a jacket, black, with a white crest that told everyone the name of the organization she works for. She passed out condoms. And pamphlets about safe sex. And asked the girls if they needed anything. Christina liked the social worker. She’d seen her there before. She was helping the girls tell City Council why they needed the square. Why they didn’t like the police chasing them away. Why the city should put in public toilets for them to use at night. Christina rolls on her side to slow down the room’s spinning. She recalls that the woman asked the girls what they would do if they got pregnant. Christina had shouted, “I’d keep it! Raise it!”

“So what would you do if your own daughter ran away from home?” the social worker asked. “Was living on the street, here on the square most nights?”

Christina had drawn hard on the joint she was holding. The smoke curled into her eyes, so that they teared up a little. She squinted at the social worker. “If she ran, I’d go find her. There is absolutely nothing that could stop me from going and looking for her. F—in’ nothing.” The girls all nodded. They like it when Christina gives them a voice, says what they’re thinking. “And if I found her, I’d haul her back home.”

“I believe you, Christina,” the social worker said. “Are you telling me, though, that if your own mother came and found you now, that you’d go home with her?”

Christina laughed. “Hell, no,” she said. Then she stared at the social worker, her eyes still moist. “But I’d want to be found.”

Lying there in the dark, Christina’s thoughts drift to the street. Then back to the emptiness she feels at home and the argument she can expect over breakfast the next morning. As she finally passes out, the room lurching around her, she mouths quietly to herself, “Who cares . . . who . . . f—in’ . . . cares.”

THE WE GENERATION

At this time of great social change and technological innovation, it’s easy for parents to overlook what kids really want: connections. Not electronic virtual real-time chatter, but one-on-one attention and touch. All our computer-driven mass communication is creating a generation that can gossip at lightning speeds, research anything about anyone with a few keystrokes, and morph into uncontrolled communities in cyberspace. This generation is more connected than any other before it, but the connections are superficial. Beneath the whirling cacophony of the information revolution are children pleading for someone to notice them. They are looking for genuine connections with concerned adults: parents, teachers, coaches, even the store clerk who sells them a Red Bull. Our children want to be known to others. They want their parents to notice them. They want to be loved and caressed. And they want to be held responsible, for themselves and for others.

If we don’t believe it, it’s because we have chosen to believe instead the stories about young people we hear in the media, movies, and advertising, stories that just aren’t true. While it may not always seem so, they are not all troubled kids. Growing up needn’t be a time of “storm and stress.” Despite a few blow-ups that end in “I hate you,” our children want to play a part in their families and communities, at least they do when they are given the opportunity.

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