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Jennifer H. Smith
05/03/2000 05:14:19 PM
Record Type: Record
To:
MaryEllen C. McGuire/WHO/EOP@EOP Shirley S. Sagawa/WHO/EOP@EOP
CC:
Subject: 5/2 Remarks By The President and First Lady At The Conference on Teenagers (Full Morning Session
Transcript)
Forwarded by Jennifer H. Smith/WHO/EOP on 05/03/2000 05:14 PM
Nanda Chitre
05/03/2000 12:29:43 PM
Record Type: Record
To:
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CC:
Subject: 5/2 Remarks By The President and First Lady At The Conference on Teenagers (Full Morning Session
Transcript)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
May 2, 2000
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AND THE FIRST LADY
AT
THE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON TEENAGERS:
RAISING RESPONSIBLE AND RESOURCEFUL YOUTH
The East Room
10:45 A.M. EDT
MRS. CLINTON: Good morning, and please be seated, and
welcome to the White House. We have been looking forward to this
conference for nearly a year now as we have talked with and
explored all the ways that we can raise resourceful and
responsible young people. And many people have asked me why a
conference on teenagers. Why make teenagers the focus of a fully
day's discussion at the White House.
Well, I think that as we just saw in the video - - and I
want to thank and applaud the families that participated in that
video many of us are concerned about what we can do as parents
and as citizens, as employers or educators, as public officials
or community leaders, to give more support to teenagers and their
families.
The President and I speak, of course, with great
authority (laughter) having just graduated from being the
parents of a teenager to being the parents of a 20-year-old and
having survived it. But, believe me, this conference is more
than just a trip down memory lane or an exercise in nostalgia for
us. We believe strongly that our young people deserve our very
best efforts.
I want to thank many of the people who are here today
who have been part of putting this conference together, but more
than that, for the work that they have done over so many decades.
First, let me thank David and Betty Hamburg who are here.
(Applause.) David and Betty, in many ways, inspired this
conference.
I began working with them more than 20 years ago now,
and I can think of no people who are more dedicated to helping
all young people, whether they're in the forgotten or not
forgotten half, whether they are going through great transitions
or turning points in their lives. And I think many of us in this
room owe both David and Betty a great deal of gratitude. I would
like to ask them to stand SO we could thank them both.
(Applause.)
Also with us today is Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs
Jones and Secretary Donna Shalala, Deputy Attorney General Eric
Holder, Secretary Alexis Herman, National Service Corps CEO
Harris Wofford, the Director of Personnel Management Janis
LaChance, the Deputy Drug Czar Vereen, Annie E. Casey Foundation,
the W.T. Grant Foundation and the YMCA of the USA are all
sponsors and supporters of this conference.
Now, all of us are here because we believe there is no
group of Americans more full of promise or potential. But we
also believe there is no group of Americans more in need of the
support, guidance and committed efforts of all of us than today's
teenagers.
Ask any teen -- and I do -- I've been privileged to
speak to so many in sort of personal and informal ways and in
more formal settings. Just last week at a high school town hall
in Watkins Glen, New York, where the teens lined up and asked all
kinds of questions. If you ask teens and you listen to teens,
you can hear, directly and indirectly, their voices telling us
that growing up today feels tougher than ever before. I happen
to think that's right. I think it's harder being a teen today
than it was, certainly, when I was one SO many years ago.
But I also think that the wonder and hope and exciting
choices that teenagers face in their lives are too often becoming
times of great stress, alienation, and confusion. And that, too,
has always been part of the teen experience, but the environment
and context in which that occurs is more dangerous than ever
before.
And if it's tough to be a teenager today, it's probably
even tougher to be a parent. More and more parents are working
outside our homes; they're struggling to do right by their
families and their jobs. And I have met SO many mothers and
fathers who tell me that they just feel inadequate and anxious
about navigating those teenage years more SO than they
certainly felt when their kids were younger.
We're all worried about the choices our teenagers make,
about how the best-laid plans for a bright future can
disintegrate with a single bad decision to drink, to try drugs,
to drive too fast, to trust the wrong person. Parents are
worried about the movies their children are seeing, the web sites
they're visiting, the music they're listening to. And there's a
lot of worry that all those heart-to-heart talks and those
efforts to communicate, which are sometimes so awkward and
difficult, about values and good behavior are getting drowned out
by a popular culture filled with gratuitous sex and violence.
In our two panels this morning, and in the breakout
sessions this afternoon, we will tackle the challenges facing
today's teenagers and their parents. But it won't just be a
session for everyone to share their worries. More importantly,
we're going to be highlighting some of the latest research about
teen years and the innovative ways that Americans can work
together to ensure that every teenager has a safe passage to
adulthood.
Three years ago, in this room, we held the first White
House Conference on Early Learning and Childhood Development. We
sought to raise awareness about the critical growth that takes
place in the brain during the first three years of life, and to
explore the implications of this knowledge on parenting,
education and child care. In many ways, that conference and
today's conference can be viewed as bookends, because now we're
beginning to learn that the brain goes through yet another, and
equally critical, growth spurt during the early teenage years.
Though the research is still preliminary, scientists now believe
that this is the time when all the hard-wiring of the brain takes
place, when a teenager's intellectual, emotional and physical
capacities are developed for a lifetime.
Now, I remember the very wise advice I got from a
friend of mine, when my daughter was very small and she was
raising three teenagers. And she said, you know, the two times
in a child's life that seem most similar to me are those toddler
years and the teenage years. It's when we need to give so much
more attention to our children. And now, we didn't know, back
when I heard this advice about 19 or so years ago, that there
would be brain research to support that anecdotal experience that
parents had. But I remembered that so often during the times
when our own daughter was growing up that even if your
teenager or your preteen doesn't want you following her or him
around, in many ways think of that toddler metaphor they
need you around. And it's hard for a lot of parents to figure
out exactly how to do that.
This research has, therefore, important implications
for parents, because teenagers need the guidance and support of
their parents more than ever. It is still difficult for many of
us to remember that teenagers want our attention. After all,
this is the time when the real or the imaginary "keep out" signs
start appearing on closed bedroom doors, when many of our
children would rather spend two hours talking to a friend on the
phone than 10 minutes talking to their mother or father in
person. But what we are learning is that for all their
declarations of independence, America's teenagers still want and
need the everyday love, involvement and discipline of their
parents.
Today, we are releasing a new poll, commissioned by the
YMCA, which found that parents are still the most important
adults in their teenagers' lives. More than three out of four
teens say they still turn to their parents in times of trouble.
In fact, while parents -- and this is so interesting while
parents list the threat of drugs and alcohol as their top
concerns about their teens, teens, themselves, list education and
"not having enough time" with their parents as their top concern.
So it's time that we respond to these concerns, and
many of us have been struggling with ways to do that. I believe
one of the biggest casualties of modern life has been family
time, especially time during meals, when parents and children can
check out of their busy schedules and check in with each other.
Before out daughter left for college, the three of us made it a
priority to share at least one meal together a day.
With our hectic schedules, it wasn't always easily and,
occasionally, wasn't possible. But we sure tried. And when we
were able to, that hour or half-hour in the small kitchen of the
private quarters upstairs in the White House was truly my
favorite part of the day, because Bill and I were very convinced
that we wanted to convey to our daughter a simple message, one
that we hoped she would carry away to college: that whenever she
does need someone to talk to or ask for advice, or just wants to
say hello, we will be available and eager to listen.
I also know, though, the experience of hanging around,
waiting for a sighting. (Laughter.) You know, when we were
first in Washington, in the first term, a lot of people some
of the pundits and others -- would say, well, the Clintons don't
go out, they don't socialize enough, you know, why aren't they
going to Camp David enough. And those are people who had
forgotten or never had a teenager. And when you have one in your
home, you want to hang around with the hope that just maybe
they'll deign to say something to you. Occasionally, that works,
but not always. And we hope this conference will inspire even
more parents to stay involved in their teenagers' lives and to
open new lines of communication.
I'm very pleased to announce the National Partnership
for Women and Families, along with the Families and Work
Institute, will lead a new campaign to promote the importance of
spending time with your teenagers.
Now, there are some lessons we parents have to learn
about this. That is not the time when you unload every piece of
worldly advice you have stored up for your entire lifetime, it is
not the time when you lecture and fill up the space with all the
words that you want to fill. These are things that I've learned
from experience.
It is, instead, a time when you hopefully are there to
inspire the communication that is two-way and principally coming
from your teen. The Time With Teens campaign will challenge
parents to take stock of their own lives and work habits and look
for ways to make more time for their children.
It will challenge businesses to offer more flexible
work schedules and policies for parents, and it will challenge
churches and synagogues, and mosques and schools, and health care
agencies and all community organizations to create more
opportunities for families to spend time together.
But we have to do more than just raise awareness among
parents. We have to give parents the tools we all need to stay
involved in our children's lives. That's why we're also
launching a new White House Task Force on Navigating the New
Media Age. Comprised of members from both the public and private
sectors, this task force will find ways to transform the tools of
the media age, namely the Internet, into tools for parents. The
task force will develop two new Internet portals one that will
link parents to information and advice on raising teens, from
health and safety to child care and education; and a second to
link teens to a variety of age-appropriate resources on the
Internet.
We also recognize it is more difficult for parents to
keep track of what teens are watching and learning on TV or on
their home computer. The YMCA poll you'll hear about found that
six out of 10 teenagers are watching television without parental
supervision, while 45 percent of all teens say they surf the
Internet on their own.
You know, when we only had one TV in the home, and you
had to fight with your parents and your brothers and sisters to
figure out which one of the three stations you were going to
watch, it was a lot easier for parents to supervise what their
children were watching. Now we have so many opportunities for
kids to see things without any parental supervision, or even
without an older brother or sister around saying, that's stupid,
or how dumb that is, trying to interject some reality into the
world that the media conveys to our kids.
We also know that the V-chip is now in effect, and I
strongly urge parents -- particularly of young kids, but also of
teenagers to learn how to program that V-chip and to use it.
There are several media rating systems in place to help
parents determine the appropriateness of the shows their children
watch. But with SO many different systems, parents must hunt for
the information needed to decode these various ratings. That's
why we will ask the task force to work with the entertainment and
media industries to create a single web site to help parents make
sense of all the various rating systems, and use them to monitor
their children's interactions with the media. I hope eventually,
we will get to a uniform system of ratings, SO that what is used
on the video shows, is used on the movies, is used on the TV, is
used across the board.
This is only a temporary step, the web site. But I
renew, therefore, my challenge to the entertainment industry.
Let's create a voluntary, uniform rating system SO that all
parents can better decide what's appropriate and what is not
appropriate for their children to see.
The challenges before us are great, and the time
between childhood and adulthood, as Bill and I can attest, is all
too short. But if there is one message we hope all Americans
will take away from this conference, it is that each of us has
the power to make a difference in every teenager's life. And it
is not just a task for parents. The research and our own
experience shows that oftentimes, it is a teacher or a coach, a
minister or an employer, a neighbor or another relative who can
provide the mentoring and the stability that every young person
needs. And sometimes during a rocky period in a teen's life, it
may be somebody outside of a parent who can be turned to with
good advice and suggestions.
So it is not just a conference aimed at teens and their
parents, it's really a conference for our entire country; to be
committed; to make what is biologically a disorienting time for
our teens and a time of exploration, a confusing time to make
it more of an opportunity and a real journey to self-discovery;
to take a time of peril and turn it into a time of promise.
We have a lot of experts and, certainly, we have teens
and parents, as well we're going to be talking about what has
worked for them. And it will be a challenge to us. But when I
speak to groups of teenagers, I always start by telling them how
proud I am of the way that they are coping with their lives,
because the great, vast majority of our kids are good kids.
That is not the message that we often receive on the
media, where we only see the stereotypes and the negative
depictions. And a lot of these kids are doing the very best they
can. In fact, the flip side of our concern is that some of them
take their lives so seriously and strive for such perfection that
the teen years are a time of even heightened misery and anxiety
because they don't think they're measuring up.
So we have got to do a better job in sending a message
to our kids that we value them, we love them, we care about them,
and that's why we want to be as involved in their lives as
possible. So let me now introduce my co-parent (laughter)
and someone who has been deeply committed to the young people of
our country, the President of the United States. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you and
good morning. I want to join with Hillary in welcoming you to
the White House, and thanking all of you for coming. I thank the
foundations that have helped us. And thank you, David Hamburg.
I still remember when we worked on a report about the
developmental needs of young adolescents back in the late '80s,
in which we recommended, among other things, that there ought to
be community service in all of our schools something that
we're finally getting around to.
I thank all of those who are here. I see SO many
people out here in this audience who have done SO much to help
our young people, our teenagers, live better lives. I see one of
the founders of the City Year program in Boston. I see a man who
has adopted a huge number of children, along with his wife, and
personally made sure that they got through their teenage years.
There are many, many stories here. I'm grateful to all of you.
I'm very grateful to Secretary Shalala and Secretary
Herman, and our National Service Chairman, Senator Harris
Wofford; and Deputy Attorney General Holder, and Janice LaChance,
and all the others who are here from the administration the
Deputy Director of our Drug Office, Donald Vereen. And thank
you, Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones. I thank you all for
what you are doing.
I want to thank the panelists, and those who will come
on afterward. And I think we ought to give one more hand to the
families that were in the film, that walked in with Hillary and
me. They did a great job. (Applause.)
You know, we've worked very hard on these family issues
for a long time, and Hillary has done so for 30 years. But the
way I see this as President, as well as a parent, looking ahead
to the kind of America we're trying to build in the new
century when I became President, we had to worry about whether
everybody who wanted or needed a job could get one. And that was
very important. And the dignity of work is very important to
families. It helps to define the shape of family life in ways
that are by and large positive.
I'll never forget once when I was governor, I had a
panel of former welfare recipients that were in the work force,
and one of my colleagues asked the lady from my state, said,
well, what's the best thing about having a job. And she said,
the best thing about it is when my boy goes to school and they
say, what does your mama do for a living, he can give an answer.
But, by the same token, we live in a country that's
very good at creating jobs, but is not as good at providing
family supports; in which people are busier and busier and
busier; and in which virtually everybody has some trouble
balancing work and family during the period of the child's life.
Even parents who are staying at home have trouble doing it.
And it is a problem that is more severe for single
parents and people that have more than one job or people that
have trouble getting around. It's a problem that's more severe
for people that work for very modest incomes. But I don't think
I know any parents who are working who have not had some periods
in their lives when they worried whether they were letting their
kids down because they weren't spending enough time with them; or
whether there were too many forces out there that were kind of
undermining that.
And one of the things that I have learned, in ways
large and small over an unfortunately increasingly elderly
existence (laughter) is that everybody has got a story,
everybody. And every child has a spark inside. And I believe
that everyone has a role to play and ought to be given a chance.
And as important as work is -- and I say that coming from a
family of workaholics the most important work that society
does is still to raise children. And if that work is done well,
the rest of it pretty well takes care of itself.
And so we're here, basically, to do all the things that
Hillary said. I think when a tragedy befalls a child, or a child
is involved in a tragedy -- a school shooting, or this terrible
incident at the Washington Zoo -- it throws it up in large
relief. But I think that one of the things we ought to do in
beginning this conference is to take a more balanced view. And I
want to be very brief because I want you to have the maximum
amount of time with the keynote speaker and with the panelists.
But I think it's important that we have a balanced view of what
teenage life is like today.
And I asked the Council of Economic Advisors to
actually get me a statistical portrait of teenage America. And
here is a brief summary. The good news is that the teenagers are
far healthier, more prosperous, and look forward to more
promising lives than ever before in our history. The economic
rewards of education are at an all-time high. Teens have
responded by completing high school and enrolling college at
record rates.
Last year, for the first time in the history of the
country, the high school graduation of African Americans and the
white majority was almost statistically identical. The dropout
rate among Hispanic young people is still too high, but that's
largely explained, I think, by the fact that we have still a very
large number of Hispanic children in our schools who are
first-generation immigrants whose first language is not English,
and they come from families that are struggling to make ends
meet, and very often they drop out to go to work still. But
we're making progress there, as well.
More teenagers than ever before volunteering to serve
through community service. Many harmful behaviors are actually
on the decline, including youth violence, homicide, suicide, teen
pregnancy, and, in the last couple of years, drug use. That's
the good news.
The report also highlights some significant challenges.
There are still significant opportunity gaps between white
students and students of color. Teen smoking, drug use and
pregnancy are still far too high. And despite a marked decline
in teen homicide over the past few years, still far too many
communities are scarred by gun violence.
Interestingly enough, statistically the Council of
Economic Advisers found that gun-related teen deaths from
deliberate acts and from accidents are highly correlated with gun
ownership and possession rates. In states with fewer guns in
fewer households, there are fewer gun deaths.
Perhaps the most empowering finding in the new report
is the extents to which parents have the opportunity to guide
their teenagers properly. Sitting down to dinner can have an
enormously positive impact. The report found that teenagers who
had dinner with listen to this: The report found that
teenagers that had dinner with their parents five nights a week
are far more likely to avoid smoking, drinking, violence, suicide
and drugs. This holds true for single-parent, as well as
two-parent families, across all income and racial groups. Now,
obviously if that is not possible, and sometimes it's not
possible, then it's really important to find some way to fill
that gap, but it's a stunning statistical finding.
For the past seven years, the First Lady and I have
worked with our administration to try to support parents' efforts
to raise healthy, hopeful and responsible children. I'd also
like to acknowledge the invaluable efforts of Vice President and
Mrs. Gore, who have had -- even before he joined me, they were
sponsoring a family conference every year in Tennessee to deal
with these issues. It's really one of the most astonishing,
consistent commitments I believe in the country. And they've
done a world of good and I'm very grateful to them.
I'll always be proud that the first bill I signed as
President was the Family and Medical Leave Act, a law that now
has given more than 20 million Americans the opportunity to take
up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave without losing their jobs. And I
remember when I signed it, it had previously been vetoed on the
theory that it would hurt the economic growth of the country. If
that's what it was designed to do, it's been a very poor failure.
(Laughter.)
What it has done is to prove that it's good economics
to balance work and family; that the more parents can succeed at
home, the more free they are, psychologically, to be productive
at work; and we ought to do more.
I have asked the Congress to include more firms in the
Family and Medical Leave law and to expand the purposes for which
people can take family leave. We have also tried to give states
the flexibility to use funds in federal accounts to help to
finance paid leave. We've worked hard on this, and I think it's
very important that we recognize that the United States has done
a great job at creating jobs, but we still give far less support
to the responsibility of balancing work and family than virtually
every other industrialized country in the world. And it is very
important to do that.
We've also worked hard to turn teenagers away from
unhealthy lives, toward healthy futures. The rate of drug use
has been cut, in part by the powerful antidrug messages that have
been broadcast; and some of you here have helped us with that.
We have done our best to engage the tobacco industry in what has
been a fairly epic and sometimes frustrating struggle to reduce
teen smoking. We made the single largest investment in
children's health care since Medicaid was created. And we're
working to get more of our kids and increasingly, I hope, this
year, their parents -- enrolled in the Children's Health
Insurance Program. And we're working to make or schools safer.
I think that we also need comprehensive strategies to
stem violence both in and out of schools. Our program would
dramatically expand quality after-school programs. When I
started, we had $1 million dollars for after-school programs;
then we went to $20 million; then we went to $200 million. This
year we've got $400 million in after-school programs. And I've
proposed $1 billion, and if we pass it, we'll be able to say that
every child, at least in every troubled neighborhood in the
United States of America, can be in an after-school program.
This is a big deal, and I hope you will support it. (Applause.)
I also want to say a word of thanks to all those who
have supported AmeriCorps, including City Year and its other
components. We've now had more than 150,000 young people earning
money for college while serving in their communities. And we're
trying to get more and more people to start earlier, to get high
school kids, junior high school kids, involved in community
service.
Maryland has become the first state in America to
require community service as a condition of a high school
diploma. And listen to this: The study found that teens who
participate in service projects in their communities are 75
percent less likely to drop out of school -- because they're
connected in a way that I think is profoundly important.
Hillary talked about the work we're doing with the
industry to give parents the tools to protect their children in
the new media age. I do think we need a voluntary system that
goes across TV, movies and video games. If we can find some way
to develop that, it would make a lot of sense. There's a lot of
information coming at parents you know, I try to sort it all
out when I see it. And I think it would be better if there were
-- it's almost like you need a dictionary to explain the
differences in the TV ratings and movie ratings and the video
game ratings, so we have to find some way this can be made more
usable.
And today, I want to just mention two things that we're
trying to do to help parents and their teenagers. First, I'm
signing an Executive Order to prohibit discrimination against
parents in the work force of the federal government. (Applause.)
Believe it or not, there are still some employers who are
reluctant to hire or to promote employees who have children at
home. Some of you may have experienced this yourselves. The
goal of this order simply says, no glass ceiling for parents.
The job they're doing at home is more important, anyway, and if
they can do your job, you ought not to stop them.
Second, I am pleased to announce that our National
Campaign Against Youth Violence, the National Campaign to Prevent
Teen Pregnancy and Tobacco-Free Kids, and the national government
have teamed up to produce a comprehensive guide to help parents
support their teenagers through this crucial and often difficult
developmental period.
Now, I want to introduce our keynote speaker now, and
say I'm sorry that I can't stay for the rest of the day, but
after he speaks I'll have to leave. But let me say that I want
to thank you for coming, again. I want to thank so many of you
here for a lifetime of commitment. People ask me all the time,
why are we focusing on these things when all the indicators are
good and things are going better. This is the time to be
thinking about I will say again -- how we can deal with the
significant challenges of this country. And anybody that thinks
that we've done everything we need to do to help the parents with
teenagers, hasn't had teenagers and hasn't been around lately.
It seems to me that if we can't deal with these big
social issues now, when we're prosperous, when we're doing well;
if we can't strengthen the bonds of our community now, when will
we ever get around to doing it. That's why we're here.
(Applause.)
I want to introduce a person who embodies much of the
good that's going on to help parents through having the village
do its part -- in the First Lady's words to raise our
children. Ben Casey is the President of the YMCA of Metropolitan
Dallas. He has degrees in psychology and counseling from UCLA
and Chapman College. He currently oversees programs listen to
this 145 program centers that serve a quarter of all the
families in the greater Dallas region. We've asked him to speak
to us today about his extensive experience with teens, the wise
new poll which also has some important findings about the way
teens and parents view their communication and time together.
And let me just finally say, Mr. Casey, as I bring you
up, every minute I have ever spent with young people, as
President and before, but especially as President, has reaffirmed
to me how special they are, what enormous potential they have.
Even the ones that can't make it, really want to and wish they
could. And what a profound responsibility we have. And I want
to honor you, sir, because you spend every day trying to make
sure we don't lose a single one. Thank you. (Applause.)
MR. CASEY: Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, and
distinguished guests. The teen years should be some of the best
years in a person's life. Unfortunately, for more and more young
people, they are becoming the most difficult years of their
lives. One thing is certain: They are the critical years in
that they serve as the basic platform from which the adult is
eventually shaped.
For those of you today that are here that are
teenagers, I'm going to let you in on a secret: While you may
think that some adults look down on you, the truth is that almost
all of us here today see ourselves still in teen images. We're
always a little surprised to see this older person looking back
at us from the mirror. (Laughter.)
We have all gathered here today to address the special
needs of today's teens. Pressures from school and family and
friends can be overwhelming for many. This generation faces
unique challenges that we must all do our part to help ensure
their success.
It's been my privilege to work with young people
through the YMCA for 34 years of the 150 years the Y has been
committed to community service. These young people have honored
me with their trust. They have shared with me their most
intimate concerns, their aspirations, and their life challenges.
As they struggle to gain the experience and the wisdom
to mature, it's clear that they are in need of support from
adults in their lives. There's a critical need for an adult to
care and take the time to listen to our teens.
I still have a vivid memory of Tom, a young man I met
at a YMCA mountain camp. One day, he asked if he could talk to
me privately, and he confided to me that he was considering
suicide. When I asked why, he said that he could not live up to
his father's expectations, and he could not live with the shame
of disappointing his father.
I arranged a meeting, and after talking, we learned
that Tom's father only wanted him to have the confidence to reach
for the stars, not necessarily, as Tom had thought, to become a
doctor or a lawyer. Tom did go on to succeed in the arts. And
until his father's death, there was no father more proud of his
son.
Communication is the key to developing the
relationships teens and parents need to effectively solve
problems together. For this conference, the YMCA of the U.S.A.
has conducted a survey to gauge the effectiveness of
communication efforts between parents and their teens.
It doesn't surprise me that in almost every case,
parents have a higher perception of how effective they are in
sharing their values and beliefs than the teenage daughters and
sons. It's for this reason that the YMCA has launched a
nationwide campaign to serve more teens and their families. Our
goal is to serve one in five teens over the next five years.
What we have found in our youth and teen programs in
Dallas, is that today's parents have less family time than their
parents did when they were growing up. Communication has always
been difficult; but now that the majority of parents have
full-time jobs and live a fast-paced life, they even have less
time for their teens. We have to look for innovative new ways to
solve this problem.
In order to cut down on the time away from home, the
Dallas Y has initiated a partnership with a grocery store and
pharmacy to allow parents to pick up their groceries, dry
cleaning and pharmacy items at the YMCA, at the same time as
picking up their children from our programs. Our only
requirement is that they must go home, turn off the television,
have dinner together as a family. To facilitate family
conversations, the YMCA distributes weekly appropriate stories,
with themes for discussion, for these family dinners.
We started this program in response to a working mom's
anxiety about not having time for evening parenting classes that
were being offered by the Y. She shared her overwhelming daily
schedule of commuting, work and errands, that left her exhausted
at the end of every day. We realized that family meal time, as
you heard earlier, is quickly disappearing, and the time parents
have to spend with their teens can be dominated by logistics --
did you do your homework? Have you cleaned your room? Little
time remains for quality conversation, to share concerns,
feelings and values.
Today, through our panelists and other experts that we
have with us, we'll learn that teens must be a priority. How can
parents learn to communicate their values and make the time to be
a greater part of their teen's lives? How can teens express
their feelings in a way that the parents understand? This is
what today is all about.
There's a quote by H. Jackson Brown, Jr., I'd like to
share with, particularly, parents. He said, "Live that so when
your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of
you. I believe in this generation of young people. I know they
are capable of carrying us into the next millennium and beyond.
But first, we must learn to listen to each other. Thank you very
much. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you SO much, and I really
appreciate your not only sharing the results of your survey, but
even more importantly the results of your many, many years of
work with young people. And we have some terrific people who are
going to be here throughout the day, and we're going to get to as
many as we possibly can.
I want to get right into this panel, and the topic is:
Who Are Today's Teens, And What Do They Need? We have some very
impressive panel members, and they're going to share with us who
are these people we call teenagers. We know they're the most
racially and ethnically diverse group of teenagers in our
nation's history. We also know that they have much in common
with one another.
The President is fond of quoting Dr. Eric Lander, who
spoke at a Millennium Evening that we held last October, who told
us that all human beings have DNA that is 99.9 percent identical.
Now, sometimes when we look at teenagers, we think they're a
different species, but they're not. They are just like us.
(Laughter.) And it should not, therefore, be surprising that
they share many of the same concerns.
And many of the parents are bewildered at how quickly
their preteens and teenage children are growing up these days.
They seem to be more mature physically, and the way that they
act. And we have two experts here on the panel who will talk to
us about the changes that occur during adolescence. And I would
like to start with Dr. Jacqueline Eccles, who is a psychology
professor and research scientist at the University of Michigan.
Much of her work has focused on adolescent development.
Recently, she chaired the McArther Foundation Project on
Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood.
She will be followed by Dr. J. Giedd, the Chief of
Brain Imaging at the Child Psychiatry Branch of the National
Institute of Mental Health. He's also a practicing clinician who
has written extensively in medical and science journals on the
biological basis of behavioral, cognitive and emotional
disturbances. And he will share with us his recent work on
healthy brain development of adolescents.
So let us begin with Dr. Eccles.
DR. ECCLES: Thank you very much, and I am delighted to
be here. Adolescence begins with the onset of puberty and ends
with the transition into adulthood.
For much of the world, this period is rather short,
lasting two to three years. Here and in other Western
industrialized countries, the period has grown to as long as 15
years, because of the time needed to train for successful
employment in our complex and highly technological societies.
I will focus my comments today, however, on the years
between 10 and 16, when most of our young people are still in
school and living at home. It is also our last, best chance to
prepare our children adequately for healthy, happy and productive
lives.
Early adolescence, the years from 10 to 14, is one of
the most labile periods in the life span. Rapid changes occur on
all levels. This period is initiated by major changes in the
hormonal system, leading to rapid changes in body morphology.
Together, these two biological changes can increase emotionality
and interest in sexuality.
They also affect the way adults interact with our youth
in both positive and negative ways. Some adults see these
changes as evidence of increasing maturity and respond with
encouragement, support and excitement. Adolescents thrive when
surrounded with such adults. Other adults see these changes as a
threat and respond with hostility, tighter controls and other
unsupportive behaviors, alienating the very young people who are
in their charge.
Rapid changes also occur at the social level. We
require most of our teenagers to make a major school transition,
moving from early elementary school into junior high school or
middle school. Unfortunately, the nature of many of these
schools leads to a decrease in close adult contact, and increases
in both the segregation of our youth into peer-oriented groups,
and the alienation of youth from their schools and the larger
society. This shift can be further exacerbated with the later
transition into high school.
We also encourage our young adolescents to become
involved in heterosexual activities, like dating, while at the
same time providing them very little guidance related to
sexuality, intimacy, and romantic relationships. Given these two
major social changes, it should come as no surprise that
adolescents turn increasingly to their peer groups for guidance
and emotional support.
These biological and social changes can also lead to
conflicts at home. This is the period in which our children must
mature from dependence on their parents to taking greater
responsibility for themselves. This requires renegotiating the
power relationship between parents and adolescents. In some
families, this renegotiation process can generate conflicts.
What else do we know about this period? First and
foremost, most adolescents and their families weather this period
rather successfully. Nonetheless, about 25 percent of our
adolescents and their families are at risk for less than optimal
development during the teenage years. For the most part, these
youth are at risk because we as a society have failed to provide
adequate in- and out-of-school experiences for them.
We also know that it is a time when our children need
to figure out who they are, and what is their place in the larger
society. It is a time of increases in both idealism and
cynicism. It is a time for planning and preparing for the
future. And for most youth, it is a time of optimism.
Finally, although we hear a lot about adolescents'
desire for independence, what they want more than anything else
is a meaningful role in their communities. Rather than
independence, they want the opportunity to be effective,
contributing members of their society. Unfortunately, we have
failed to provide them with many such opportunities. Raising
responsible and healthy adolescents requires us to provide such
opportunities, as well as to make sure that all of our
adolescents are given adequate training to make a successful
transition into adulthood.
Today -- and I emphasize "today" we, as a society,
are not doing very well in meeting these challenges. We need to
do all we can to make sure all of our youth have both close,
personal relationships with supportive adults, and the
opportunities to be fully participating members of their
communities. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Dr. Eccles.
(Applause.) You've raised a lot of questions, which I hope we
can get back to and discuss.
Now I'd like to hear from Dr. Giedd, who will help us
understand what actually may be going on in the brains of young
teenagers.
DR. GIEDD: Well, thank you very much. It's an honor
for me to be here.
Advances in computers, mathematics and imaging
technology now allow us to examine the developing brain as never
before. And what we've found surprised us. Any parent of a teen
can tell you that a nine-year-old and a 13-year-old's brains are
very different. Yet, to actually pin down those brain
differences in a scientific way has been elusive. This is
because nature has gone through a great deal of trouble to
protect the brain. It's wrapped in a tough, leathery membrane,
surrounded by a protective moat of fluid, and then completely
encased in bone.
This has shielded it well from falls or attacks from
predators; but it has also shielded it from scientists.
(Laughter.) Most ways of looking at the living brain, such as
X-rays or CT scans use harmful radiation that prevent us from
using these to study healthy children.
MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, changed all that.
It allows us to get exquisitely accurate pictures of the living,
growing human brain, and has helped launch a new era of
adolescent neuroscience.
Brain development takes place by greatly over-producing
the number of brain cells and connections. And this is followed
by a highly competitive elimination phase in which only a small
percentage of the cells and connections will make it. This
process was thought to occur only in the womb, maybe during the
first 18 months of life. But when we actually followed the
development of children by scanning their brains each two years,
we were amazed to find a second wave of over-production a
whole decade later than we had originally thought.
Although the total size of the brain is already 95
percent of its adult size by first grade, the gray matter or
thinking part of the brain continues to thicken as the brain
cells grow extra connections, much like a tree growing extra
branches, twigs or roots.
In the frontal part of the brain, which is involved in
planning, judgment and organization, this over-production process
peaks at about age 11 in girls, and 12 in boys about the same
time as puberty. Then, the excess connections are eliminated or
pruned, resulting in a thinning of the gray matter. We don't yet
know all the forces that drive this adolescent pruning process;
that's the next phase of our research. But one idea is the "use
it or lose it" principle -- those cells and connections that are
used will survive and flourish; those cells and connections that
are not used will wither and die.
We feel this is an incredibly empowering concept for
teens. Unlike when they were in the womb or during the first 18
months of their lives, the teens themselves can choose their
activities and may be able to help guide the hard-wiring of their
brains for the adult years.
It's an unfortunate irony that during this adolescent
pruning process, when the brain is so vulnerable, it's also the
time when experimentation with drugs and alcohol is most likely.
It's been very gratifying in my clinical practice that many
teens, armed with knowledge about what's actually happening in
their brains, choose not to take those risks. But sometimes,
through no fault of the parent or teen, the pruning process can
go awry. For instance, in childhood schizophrenia, there is an
over-pruning as much as four-fold in the frontal areas of the
brain.
The impact of medicines on this process of
developmental pruning is largely unknown. On the one hand, the
medication used in teenagers is vastly understudied, so we don't
know many of the potential risks, especially the long-term risks.
But on the other hand, medicines properly used may help the
adolescent have a more healthy brain state, and therefore have
more healthy hard-wiring, and may lessen the need for medicines
as an adult. So it's a complicated issue. There are risks to
not using medicines, and there are risks to using medicines in
the teens.
While much work remains to be done, it's clear from a
biological perspective that brain development is far, far from
over during the first years of life. This represents a second
chance for teens to make positive changes for themselves and for
their futures. I'm truly thrilled to be part of this exciting
process of discovery, and look forward to striving to provide
information for parents, for teachers, for society, and for the
teens themselves to help optimize the development of their
brains.
Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Dr. Giedd. I'd
like to call on someone, now, in the audience, because of course
there are so many people in this room who have such a wealth of
experience, and it's been very hard figuring out how we could get
everyone to participate. But I would like to ask for comments
from Angela Diaz, the Director of the Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health
Center.
DR. DIAZ: Thank you. I would like to say that after
20 years serving adolescents, I have learned a few things. One
of them is that adolescents are great health care consumers if
they are engaged and they understand the process. Also, I have
learned that we can have the greatest impact in that age group,
whether we are parents, educators or health professionals.
The other thing that I learned is that we design
services for adults, and then we want to fit teenagers in that
model. And when it doesn't work, we blame them and we call them
noncompliant, when, indeed, if we actually designed services to
meet their needs, they would utilize those services. And those
services need to be warm, welcoming; the adolescent needs to feel
respected; they need to be provided at times with those so they
can utilize them, including evening and weekend hours. They need
to be provided regardless of the adolescent's ability to pay for
them or not. And they need to honor confidentiality.
I think parents are the most important things for
teens. The teenager needs their love, their nurturance, their
understanding and their advocacy. But at times, teenagers are
not able to tell their parents certain things, and we need to
make sure that we can honor and provide confidential services
when needed. I am the parent of three teens and I certainly hope
that if my kids ever need anything that they cannot tell me,
someone would make sure that they get the services that they
need.
The other thing that I want to add is that those
services need to be advertised so that the teens know where to
go. And I think that's one of the beauties of school-based
clinics. Because the services are provided right in school,
where the teenagers are. They provide a great opportunity for
follow-up and continuity, and they also happen to be extremely
cost effective.
And I also learned that in addition to the physical
health of teens, we need to attend their mental health needs --
whether they are stress related, depression, abuse or violence.
Violence, including abuse, has become the number one public
health issue in my work. I find that adolescent females are
sexually abused more often -- they have a history of sexual abuse
more often than any other condition. I'm in the field for 20
years, and we need to understand and realize that.
And the last thing that I want to add is that
well-intentioned adults including parents, educators, health
professionals, researchers, policy-makers and funders -- tend to
see adolescent health in a varied problem, deficit-based way.
And we really need to -- that leads to a lot of fragmentation.
We need to move toward a more holistic, comprehensive,
multidisciplinary wellness model, in which appropriate nutrition,
fitness, and adequate sleep form the infrastructure for
adolescent well-being.
And I just want to say that as a society, we need to
help adolescents grow up happy, healthy, well-educated, with
hopes and opportunities. They are our thermostat: if they do
well, we will do well as a nation. And I think adolescents are
just great. They are terrific. Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Dr. Diaz, for your
comments. And I'm glad you mentioned adequate sleep
(laughter) -- which is an issue that we're hearing more about
these days, as there's more and more research about how teenagers
need more sleep. I don't know, Dr. Giedd and Dr. Eccles, if that
has a biological base. But certainly it seems to have, and that
many teenagers are chronically fatigued, which has to interfere
with their biological and social functioning.
Our next panelist is Karen Pittman, someone I've known
for many, many years, when she and I were both at the Children's
Defense Fund. And she was there working to promote an adolescent
policy agenda, and later when she agreed to serve as the Director
of the President's Crime Prevention Council.
Karen is a sociologist by training, a nationally
recognized leader in the field of youth development who helped to
launch the movement America's Promise. She's currently the
Senior Vice President of the International Youth Foundation,
which is an organization dedicated to improving conditions and
prospects for children and youth worldwide. And I think Karen
has such a wealth of experience and can help us understand what
all teenagers need -- the assets they need in their lives to
develop into successful adults.
Karen Pittman.
DR. PITTMAN: Thank you. To answer the question, what
young people need, we have to remind ourselves we first have
to say, what do we define -- how do we define success. Too often
our messages even today about what we want from young people are
negative. We want them to not get pregnant, not use drugs, not
get in trouble, not be violent. And parents and policy-makers
alike are very concerned about the risky behaviors that threaten
young people's futures, if not their lives.
But few parents stop their list there when they talk
about their young people. Beyond wanting young people to not get
in trouble, parents, and I think all of us, want to see them
acquire the attitudes, the values, the skills and the behaviors
that will position them for the future, and for success.
Problem-free isn't fully prepared. Anyone -- as an
employer, if we say, I have Johnny, he's not in a gang, he's not
on drugs, he's not illiterate, he's not a dropout, he's not a
teen father, will you hire him hopefully, will say, what can
he do. (Laughter.) So problem-free isn't fully prepared. And
academic confidence, while it is absolutely critical and far too
elusive still in this country for many young people, academic
confidence is not enough to ensure success. We have to make sure
that young people have the social, emotional, vocational and
civic confidence that they need, and that we expect of them.
At the International Youth Foundation, we talk about
five Cs the fact that young people need to be competent, they
need to be confident, they need to have character, connections,
and we have added the fifth C they need to be contributors.
Not just have opportunities to contribute, but have very clear
expectations from us that is what they need to do, as a part of
being teens and as a part of being adults.
If these are the outcomes that we want from young
people, what are the basic inputs? You've heard them today, but
I'm going to repeat them anyhow, since I have a few minutes.
What is it that communities must provide in order to fully expect
that our young people, in school or out of school, affluent or
low-income, have the mix of services, supports and opportunities
that they need in order to stay engaged and be full participants?
They are some basic things. First of all and we
can't underestimate this young people need the basic care and
services that were just talked about, that are affordable,
appropriate, and accessible, and if necessary, confidential.
Those services range from health care to transportation. But
services alone are not enough, and services alone, we have
learned, will not draw young people in from the streets or from
dangerous behaviors. They need supports and opportunities.
Young people -- and we've heard this -- need people in
their lives. They need adults who will listen, who will guide,
who will respect them, and who will help them navigate. They
need places, safe, stimulating, structured places where they can
live, they can learn, they can work, they can play.
They need possibilities. They need high-quality
instruction and training, not just in the academics, but in
anything else they're interested in. They need opportunities to
work. They need opportunities to contribute through service. We
can enlist teens to clean vacant lots; we'd have to also make
sure that they're prepared and ready to advocate for making that
lot stay clean through better zoning and other policies.
We can give young people chances to do job shadowing;
but in the end, we have to make sure they have jobs. The list of
inputs that young people need is not very complicated. But these
lists are powerful, and when these inputs are provided, young
people thrive. You've heard that. You'll hear later from Dr.
Blum, who will talk about the fact that we have research that
suggests that the more young people have these basic inputs, the
better off they are, the more likely they are to succeed, the
less likely they are to engage in risky behaviors.
And we know that these inputs cannot be
overly-redundant. They have to be provided in as many settings
as possible -- families, schools, youth organizations, the
workplace. These inputs are sensible and they are simple. As
mentioned, America's Promise struck a chord in many communities
by offering a basic list of five fundamental resources: caring
adults, safe places, a healthy start, marketable skills and
opportunities to give back. And they challenged communities to
provide all five. There are other lists. The Search Institute,
public-private ventures. We know what young people need. But,
still, these inputs are not available for every teen.
Families play a critical role in being the brokers, the
monitors and the guides for their young people, to make sure they
get those services, supports and opportunities. But there is a
cruel irony in the fact that the parents who have the fewest
personal resources live in the neighborhoods that have the fewest
community resources. We have to address that, because too often
the best that a parent can do, while saving the funds to move to
a safer place, is to keep their young person indoors, because the
dangerous people, places and possibilities in their neighborhoods
far outweigh the safe ones not to even mention the stimulating
ones. And this is a sad commentary on this country.
Saddest, perhaps, is the fact that we really, to date,
have no way of knowing how bad or how good the situation is for
individual young people. Common sense and research suggest that
these inputs are cumulative, that the more teens have the better
off they are. But, currently, we have no way to track how many
young people get how many of these resources. We've had lots of
individual data, but we really can't add it up to give this.
And while we know that we have data often too much
data on the problems that young people have, we have very few
ways of knowing how well they are doing, beyond academic success.
And this really is unfortunate, because the teens and
young adults of America and their families have goals beyond
staying out of trouble, and beyond graduating from high school.
Our trend data suggest that problems are going down. We applaud
this; we want it to continue. But we will not see improvements
in teen prospects unless we can ensure that they have a full
array of the people, places, and possibilities that they need to
thrive, and a strong sense that we expect every one of them to do
so. Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Well, we started our program with a
video that highlighted some of the young people who are with us,
who did such a good job. Now I think it's time we heard from
another young person. Emily McDonald, who is in our audience
today, is 17. She grew up in Clarkrange, Tennessee, in
Appalachia. As a young child, she was sponsored by Save the
Children.
Now, all of us remember Save the Children asking that
we sponsor children. Well, here is one of the children who was
sponsored in our own country. She also benefited from the Head
Start program. And today, she's a straight-A student, a
cheerleader, and a dedicated volunteer with Save the Children,
helping to renovate that old Head Start center she attended as a
child so it can serve as an after-school center.
Emily, I'd like you to tell us a little bit about
yourself and what you're trying to do for your community.
MS. MCDONALD: Thank you, Mrs. Clinton, and good
morning, everyone. I'm from a community called Clarkrange, in
Fentress County, Tennessee. Our county's population is
approximately 16,000 residents. The annual income for a family
of three is just over $13,000, far below the national average of
$20,000. There are 386 students at my high school, grades 7
through 12. Our area does not have a lot of resources or
activities for young people. And for this reason, I have seen a
lot of youth in my community become involved in drugs and
violence because they do not have good alternatives.
My community and I are very fortunate and thankful to
the Save the Children organization. I have been a sponsored
child since age seven. With their help and the help of my
grandmother, Estelle Cooper, who has been an active Save the
Children volunteer since 1968, we are able to offer numerous
in-school and after-school tutoring and mentoring programs, as
well as art and reading programs. We do countless hours of
volunteer community service projects and are able to provide
better choices for children from pre-school through high school.
While giving back to our community, I also have a
strong family base and much love and support, which empowers me
to take on large tasks. I am especially close to my mother and
grandmother. They have instilled in me the values of honesty,
responsibility and to always do my best. I feel these things are
important in all areas of life. My family and I enjoy family
time, going to the movies and talking at mealtime by
supporting each other in all our individual activities.
After my high school graduation next year I plan to go
to college in my home state of Tennessee and pursue a career in
medicine, and also give back to my community and country. That's
the least I think I can do. Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Thank you so much, Emily. The way that
you have described your connections between your family and your
community is exactly what we've been hearing about today. I
think you've got your mother with you today, don't you? And Mrs.
McDonald, why don't you stand up and let us congratulate you on
raising such a responsible and resourceful impressive young
woman, as your daughter. (Applause.)
Now, our next speakers may not be scientists or
researchers, but they are experts. They are the parents of three
teenagers. They both used to be six feet tall before they became
the parents of three teenagers. (Laughter.)
I know that everyone in this audience and all of the
people who are following this on the satellite transmission and
the different sites around the country are familiar with the many
films and roles that Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman have starred
in; the television characters they've created on "Taxi" and
"Cheers," and, increasingly, we're familiar with all of the
movies that Danny has produced.
But you may not know about all of the work they do on
behalf of children, most recently as spokespersons for the After
School Alliance. And we've invited them here because they are
two parents who have really focused a lot of energy and concern
and love, despite their obviously busy schedules, not only on
their own children, but on children in general, trying to provide
better opportunities for them as well.
And, Danny and Rhea, why can't you give us a few hints,
then, about raising responsible and resourceful teenagers.
MR. DEVITO: You want to go?
MS. PERLMAN: No, you go. Go ahead.
MR. DEVITO: It's negotiation, the whole thing.
(Laughter.)
Wow, this is really exciting. First of all, thanks so
much for this opportunity to be here and listen to everybody.
I'm writing a lot of things down that I think I'm going to try to
apply.
The one thing that you were saying, Doc, was about, you
know, if you told teenagers, that if they do all these things
they're going to lose brain matter, I think they wouldn't do it.
(Laughter.) You know, just show them. Get a brain before and a
brain after -- you see that stuff dwindling down? I wouldn't do
anything. (Laughter.) I mean, that's key, right?
Anyway, I'm really a lucky guy, because I have you
know, for 17 years I've been able to come home from work, really
come home from work and hang out with my kids. Ninety percent of
the time I'm successful at that. I mean, I try to do that, and
Rhea is the same way. You know, it's like, hey, I eat dinner
with them, and hang out, try to be there while they do their
homework. I mean, I can't go near math or science or anything
like that, you know what I'm saying? (Laughter.) But I can ask
them the questions off of those note cards and things. You know,
spell this, or something. As long as I've got the answer in
front of me. (Laughter.)
But you know -- and as they grow older, they have all
their own things that they start getting into. Now I come in the
house, and I make sure they know I'm home, I yell into Lucy's
room, I say, Lucy -- she's my 17-year-old, you know and I hear
her go like this: hold on a second. Hi, Dad. I'm on the phone.
Okay, all right. So, just want you to know I'm here. And I go
to Gracie's room, and she's on the computer, you know, and she's
doing homework, and I hear the click-click-click-click, the
typing going on and stuff. And I just say, I'm here, you know.
And then I ran out in the hallway, and Jake, who's 12,
actually going to be 13 in October. He runs down the hallway
this you appreciate -- he had a towel, a wet towel, it was all
twisted up and wrapped around with rubber bands and string. And
he said, you know, this is a brain - - now this is a brain, see?
It looked like it was in the shape of a brain. He said, you
know, Dad, that if you take the gray matter of a brain and you
stretch it out, it would be the size of an office desk. Right?
(Laughter.) Am I right? (Laughter.)
And he uptalks, my son. You know what uptalk is? You
know, like, where they don't end a sentence and they keep talking
like this, and they go like that. And if you take the arteries
and capillaries and veins in your body and you stretch them all
around you can go four times around the world? (Laughter.) I
go, uh-huh, okay. Whew, down the block he's down the end of
the hallway and I'm left there with a puddle from the dripping
towel. (Laughter.)
But uptalk is really interesting. You've probably
experienced it, like all the doctors and people who have studied
it. I think it comes from people not -- you know, kids want to
be heard, and they're afraid that if they stop, adults are going
to cut them off and they're not going to talk to them.
So, anyway, I think -- in October, like I said, I'm
going to have three teenagers in the house. I'm not looking for
sympathy. (Laughter.) I'm bragging. I think it's really good.
I like hanging out with them. And there are so many pressures - -
teenagers have so many pressures. And a lot of times, the
pressures come from the very people that they turn to for help
counselors and teachers and parents.
There are SO many things going through their head, all
kinds of weird thoughts and whatever, and what do they do? And
if they don't have anybody that they trust, that they can turn
to, it's devastating. They're confused, or they're mad, or
they're sad, or a combination of all that at once. It doesn't
matter where a teenager is from, because they're susceptible and
it's easy for them to get into trouble if they have a lot of free
time on their hands, there's no guidance.
I think that's what we have to do -- we have to listen
to our kids. And if we're there all the time, that's okay. And
we have to tell them the truth. That's big. We have to really
level with them. It's that seven years between -- the teenage
years when they go from being a kid to being an adult. And I
think it's also a key thing that you make sure you tell your kids
that there was a time when you went through those seven years and
you weren't so wise and SO perfect like you are now. (Laughter.)
Just tell them that you understand what they're going through.
This is really good. I am really happy to be here.
Thank you. Rhea, you're probably going to jump in here now.
(Laughter and applause.)
MS. PERLMAN: He's such a great dad, really.
(Laughter.) We try to spend as much time with our kids as we
possibly can. We're there a lot. We don't go to see Limp Bizkit
concerts with them or anything, or hang around when they're on
the phone. But it's just very important that we stay intimately
and deeply involved with their lives, even though they may be
bigger than us and can drive. (Laughter.)
But when we're not there, we try to know who they're
with and what they're doing and make sure that they've got
something valuable going on. But we're kind of lucky that way
because we have excellent resources. And I think that most
parents really want to be with their children a lot, but very few
parents can physically be there for them as much as they would
like to because they work.
And most parents do, and some have two jobs or three
jobs, and they don't have any resources. So if their kid isn't
in the school play or in the band or writing for the paper or on
a team, then they have nothing and they don't know what their
kids are doing. And there aren't even grandmas or neighbors
around that much anymore to look in on their kids because they're
out working, too.
So to address something that Ms. Pittman was talking
about, I think that kids really need safe places to go after
school. Places where they can do things that make them feel good
about themselves -- work on stuff that they're interested in, get
help with their homework, get something to eat if they're hungry,
where they can have access to computers and music, art, sports,
where they can just talk to an adult if they're having a problem,
or chill out with some kids.
So for many years, Danny and I have been working with
an organization -- it's a terrific organization called LA's Best.
And they set up and run after-school programs in Los Angeles
elementary schools. These programs are free, they're voluntary.
And the sign-up rate is huge. I mean, there are waiting lists
for this program. And the people who supervise the kids -- 90
percent of them are from the community. They're trained; some of
them are salaried, some of them volunteer, and some of them are
high school students who do it as part of their work-study
programs, which is great for them as well.
And the kids in L.A.'s Best love it there. They love
it. They feel safer. They like school more. They get better
grades. And then, when they end up going to middle school, the
absentee rate of these kids, compared to the kids who haven't
been through the program, drops way down. This means that
they're staying in school, and this is key, because -- this is a
statistic that someone told me the other day. It says, the
correlation between school dropouts and teen violence is greater
than between smoking and lung cancer.
I mean, you know, there's a lot of talk about standards
and testing and all that. I've been reading a lot in the
newspaper about this. But if there's nobody in the classroom,
all the standards and the testing in the world don't mean
diddley-squat.
So L.A.'s Best, though, is not in every elementary
school, it's in no high schools or junior highs. And that's only
in Los Angeles. So Danny and I have joined the After-School
Alliance, whose goal is to have every child in the United States
have access to quality, affordable after-school care by the year
2010. (Applause.) And that's why the President and the First
Lady's commitment to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers
program, which is a federally funded program to make after-school
activities available, is SO important.
And I don't want to seem greedy, but -- I am.
(Laughter.) We need more. It seems to me that the federal
government, the states, the cities and the private sector should
all pull together to make helping parents take care of our
children a priority. Because parents constantly worry about
their kids -- constantly. The period of highest juvenile
violence is in the hour after school ends.
So to know that your kid isn't out on the street or,
for that matter, home alone surfing the channels on the TV,
watching who knows what, would bring a lot of peace. And
teenagers are already under so much pressure, as we've heard,
from peer groups, from competition, from school, from their
hormones -- to have a positive option, instead of the extra
burden of having to fend for themselves as kids would mean a lot
to a lot of kids.
So thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: I thank both Danny and Rhea for sharing
those experiences. And, Danny, thank you for talking about how
important it is just to hang out with your kids -- without an
agenda, without a plan, without trying to make something happen,
but just to be there for them and have a chance to learn about
the brain as a wadded-up towel. That's something he wanted to
tell you.
MR. DEVITO: That's right. That's right.
MRS. CLINTON: And, Rhea, thank you for yours and
Danny's commitment to after school programs. And I especially
appreciate your mentioning how, in some of the programs older
kids, young teens, are among those who supervise the younger
kids, which is such a critical way of giving young people some
responsibility.
One of our problems is that there is not a lot for kids
to do anymore. There aren't the chores that used to be part of
daily growing up. And I think a lot of parents don't either feel
they can or think it's kind of a waste of time to assign those
sorts of chores. There's not the daily work that people had to
do. And SO we've got to create responsible roles for young
people. And doing what you're doing is so critical to that.
I'm very grateful to this panel, and I'm going to ask
the next panel to come up. And as they do, let's give another
round of applause to this panel. (Applause.) Karen, thank you
so much.
MRS. CLINTON: This second panel is focused on what
parents can do to help teens, and what communities can do to help
teens and parents. I was very struck by what Karen Pittman said
about how it's often the parents with the fewest resources who
live in the communities with the fewest resources - - the fewest
private resources in the areas with the fewest public resources.
And so we need to be focused on what tools we can give to parents
and communities.
You know, David Hamburg, who was instrumental in
planning this conference and who is one of our nation's leading
experts on adolescent development, called our next speaker's
recent book, a book that I am reading, which I recommend to
everyone, a book called "Our Last Best Shot" Dr. Hamburg
called it the best book on adolescents ever written for the
general public. And that's quite a recommendation.
Laura Sessions Stepp is a Pulitzer prize-winning
journalist from The Washington Post. But she's here today to
share with us what she learned in researching her book, which is
really a road map for parents navigating the challenging teen
years.
And she will then introduce our two next speakers, who
are aptly named Edd and Edwin Speaker, which is very appropriate,
who are featured in a chapter in her book that is called "Am I
Competent?" which echoes some of our earlier panelists' comments
about the importance of teens feeling competent.
So let me now turn to Laura Sessions Stepp.
MS. STEPP: Thank you, Mrs. Clinton, for inviting me to
speak in front of this most distinguished and caring group.
I'd like to start by telling two short anecdotes. One
night, three years ago, in a small Kansas town called Ulysses, a
13-year-old named Shannon spent an hour complaining to me about
her mom, Brenda. Mom got onto her about e-mail; Mom got onto her
about her grades; her litany was as long as her face. And, yet,
as soon as she got home, she headed straight for mom and gave her
a big hug and said, mom, I love you.
In Durham, North Carolina, a 14-year-old named Mario
had to sit out 8th grade because he had been suspended from
school. When I asked him what was good about his life, he
answered quickly, my parents, I be doing everything with them.
These stories illustrate a significant point: No
matter how teenagers may criticize their mom and dad, parents
matter to them a lot. Think about the poll Mrs. Clinton
mentioned earlier: Three out of four teens wish they had more
time with their parents three out of four. That doesn't
surprise me.
When I began researching my book, I really wanted to
look at kids' relationships with people other than parents
coaches, teachers, mentors. The kids, themselves, kept leading
me back to their families. And what I learned from following
those 18 families over two years is that closeness with teens is
earned, it's not a given.
The closeness is earned in three ways. I call these
concepts the three R's of raising teens. Parents who raise
healthy teens so respect for their kids' rapidly growing minds
and bodies; they give their kids an increasing amount of
responsibility; and they work at keeping a close relationship
with them. Respect, responsibility and relationship are what's
important, all the rest is details.
For example, in Kansas, Jack Richardson's mom, Gay,
agreed to let him rope bulls in rodeo arenas when he was 12.
That's respect. Edwin Speaker, whom you will meet in a few
minutes, was selling art and incense for his mom on California's
Venice Beach, also by age 12. Can you imagine letting your child
run a booth, by himself, among hundreds of hucksters and weirdos
on Venice Beach? (Laughter.) More comical, can you imagine your
face when he brings home $300 for one day's work? Now, that's
responsibility.
Libby Segal, a 7th grader in Los Angeles, was caught
smoking marijuana and drinking at a party. When her mother,
Rebecca, picked Libby up and took one whiff, she could easily
have blasted her with accusations. Instead, she asked a pointed
question. What does it mean to do this with your friends, she
asked. She forced Libby to think, even in her altered state.
Rebecca told Libby, your friends' actions affect you, but you
affect them, too.
You see, she respected her daughter's thinking skills,
even though she knew her judgment had failed temporarily. She
reminded Libby that she was responsible for herself and for
others. And most importantly, she kept that relationship going
through what could have been a disaster by asking questions
calmly.
I've developed a theory about successful parenting
relationships from years of writing about teenagers. Parents who
do almost anything for their young children continue to make
tangible sacrifices to stay close to their kids in adolescence.
Some work split shifts SO that a parent is always home. Some
volunteer in school on their lunch hour. They listen to their
kids, the smallest details that their kids want to share, and
they never, ever give up on them.
One last story. Shannon, the Kansas girl who
complained first and hugged second, continued to have a rocky
relationship with her mother after I left that family. Two years
after I left, she injured herself intentionally. Fortunately,
she survived. Her mother, Brenda, hung in there, and a year
later, after she had done that, Shannon gave her mom a
cross-stitch wall hanging, and on it were the words, "If I didn't
have you for a mother, I'd choose you for a friend.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
And now it is my very great privilege to introduce Edd
and Edwin Speaker, the father-son duo who fill the first chapter
of "Our Last Best Shot." Edd grew up in Texas before moving to
Los Angeles. He's an insurance claims consultant and has four
children. Edwin, despite how big he is, he's his youngest. Edd
and his ex-wife, Dorothy, split up when Edwin was seven. Edwin
lives with his dad who, out of necessity, became a master at
networking for his son.
Edwin, a high school freshman when I met him, and
considerably shorter, is now a senior in high school. He's a
talented drummer and disc jockey, and has plans -- at least, I
think he has plans to become a sound engineer. Edd Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. It's an honor to be here, and
to be among such great minds. You know, I sat and I listened to
all the comments that have been made about the development of
children. And you know, I kind of wondered, I said, well, who
showed everybody what I was going to say? (Laughter.) Because
most of the points that I intended to make have been touched on.
And to me, that just kind of solidifies the thought that we all
have a common goal, we all have a common caring about our kids.
And being a single parent, there have been a number of
obstacles that I've faced as a single parent, and that I think
all parents face, whether they be single parents or two-family
parents. And the number one obstacle being to provide a safe
environment to have an after-school program where you don't
have to worry about what's happening to your kid, what type of
influences that they'r being exposed to, and that you can go
about your daily job of earning a living for the family.
I think that in order to be a successful parent, in
addition to being involved with your child on a daily basis, you
have to start by networking. I've been asked a number of times,
you know, tell us what you've done to be a successful parent.
And I started by networking. And the question comes back, well,
what does networking do?
Networking basically provides you with a base of
resources. And when I say networking, I mean talking to other
parents that have the same common sharing, that have the same
goals, that may know about programs, that may know about
resources that you don't know listening to these parents and
taking advantage of them.
I started in the church. You know, Edwin and I are
very religious people, and our entire moral basis is based on
things that we've learned right and wrong, and we started in the
church. In my church, I was talking with a church member who
informed me about a sports clinic. I went to the sports clinic,
I talked with a parent at the sports clinic who told me about
Challengers Boys and Girls Club, which is a member of the Boys'
and Girls' Club of America.
I went over to Challengers, and they said, oh, yes,
we've got a transportation program, we can pick you kid up from
school, bring him here, help him with his homework, and you come
by after you get off from work. I said, gee, how in the world am
I going to afford something like this. They said, well, it's $25
a year. You may not be able to afford it. And I was really
excited about the fact that this wide array of services was
available.
So I decided that I would become intensely involved
with this organization, as well as with other community
organizations, and that I would bring my son along, and try to
show him rather than tell him. So I was constantly there with
him. We were constantly involved. He's evolved into a quite a
young man and I'm really proud of him.
One of the things I will say is that it would not be
fair for me to try to take all the credit for Edwin's
development. People come to me, they say, you've got such a
great son, you did such an outstanding job. And while it's true
he is a great son and a fine young man, I can't take all the
credit for it. He has a strong relationship with his mom, he
sees her on a regular basis. There are other people that
obviously have influenced his life -- his teachers, there are
other mentors. It takes a village to raise a kid; and while we
all want to take all the credit, it's just not fair.
And I think, even more importantly so, is that a
certain amount, if not a major part of it, goes to Edwin, because
he's the one that makes the choice. I mean, you can present all
these things, you can bring all the programs, you can have all
the resources that you want but the kid still has to make a
conscious decision: Yes, I want to be this way; yes, I want to
be the kind of person that adults respect, that my peers like me.
And I think he's made a conscious decision to be this kind of
person.
I could go on and on naming all the things that he's
done and the things that I've been concerned about, but I think
that I can sum it up by saying that as a parent, we all
constantly reach for the kind of positive personality components
and character elements that we want our kid to have. But it's up
to the kid to make these choices. And the one thing that we can
do is that we have to embrace our children, we have to love them
and just never, ever stop pushing them to be the best that they
can be. (Applause.)
And it's also quite an honor to be here and to be able
to share this with my son. We started out as a father and son
team, about 10 years ago, he was six years old, and we had no
idea that we would ever be in such an audience and such a place.
And I'd like to introduce him and have him say a few things.
Edwin, stand up. (Applause.)
EDWIN SPEAKER: It's truly an honor to be here, to
speak in front of the First Lady, and even to see the President
is a real honor. And me and my dad, we're like a normal family.
We don't see it as doing different things, we just do it as
normal. Like me being involved in the Boys and Girls Club helped
a lot. I have a lot of mentors, they taught me a lot of
different things. I was in a lot of different programs.
And I think if it wasn't for my dad, where would I be?
Because like I said, it takes a man to raise a man. (Applause.)
I mean, I give credit to my mom, too, but I owe it most to my
dad. He took me fishing. We used to go out to the ball game.
He was involved in a lot of programs in the club. It's because
of that, that I think I'm here today. I just owe most of the
credit to him. That's all I have to say. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Laura Stepps' book talks a lot about the
question that she poses: Am I competent? -- is a child competent
to do something and feel good about himself. And, certainly, Edd
and Edwin are examples for all of us who know that there are
challenges that have to be overcome in everyone's life.
But seeking that commitment to overcome them and create
that competence -- and I like Laura's three R's of respect,
responsibility and relationship -- but I think you summed it very
well, Mr. Speaker, when you talked about show me, not tell me.
And there really is not any substitute for that.
And I think partly because of time pressures and
because we are living in such a non-stop, talky culture where
people are just talking at us and sometimes you turn on TV,
they're yelling at us - - people think that talk substitutes for
action, and that as long as you're a good talker, it doesn't
really matter what else you do. And that has permeated our
culture.
So the idea, the slogan, "show me, don't tell me,"
that's the way you build competence. You can tell somebody
something over and over again, but only by showing them and
exemplifying the characteristics you want do you really have a
chance of creating the sort of person that you hope to have.
Now, our next speaker, Dr. Robert Blum, is the Director
of the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health at
the University of Minnesota, and is a co-investigator for the
seminal national longitudinal study on adolescent health known as
ADD Health.
This important research holds very significant
information about the influence of social factors and connections
to the health of teenagers. And I think it's important that we
know what this research is demonstrating, because sometimes your
experience may not be enough; you may feel somewhat doubtful
about your own experience, or even about what somebody else tells
you. But backing up that experience with the research may help
to, I hope, change some people's minds about what we need to do.
Dr. Blum?
DR. BLUM: Thank you very much. Mrs. Clinton, I wasn't
going to comment, but you raised the issue before about chores.
And there actually has been research, and we've done some of the
work with kids with disabilities. And what we found is that
chores, having responsibilities, is a non-verbal message that you
matter in my family. And kids who don't have chores get the
message, you don't count.
I'd like to structure my comments, based on ADD Health,
around four myths. Myth number one: Families don't matter. By
the time we reach adolescence, it's all in the genes -- spell it
whichever way -- (laughter) -- or peers.
What do we know? We know that families in fact do
matter, and continue to matter throughout the teenage years. In
the original analyses of ADD Health, family connectedness was
associated with delay in sexual debut, less cigarette smoking,
less alcohol use, less emotional distress and suicidality, and
less violence. We have also found that adolescent perceptions,
what kids believe particularly about maternal disapproval of
sex -- are associated with delay of first intercourse. Parents'
perceptions, on the other hand - what mom says she believes
has no such association with delay of first intercourse.
What influences perception? Perceptions don't seem to
be influenced by the amount of talk. They seem to be influenced,
as we have seen this morning, by the interaction of caring and
connectedness, on the one hand, and clear and consistent
messages.
Myth number two: parents need to be home after school
to monitor their kids more. There's value to being home after
school. But what we know is that monitoring without
connectedness has little associated protective effect. Where it
does, it's mostly with older teenagers, and it's limited to
certain substance abuse.
Likewise, while there are less health-risk behaviors
found in teenagers whose parents are home more times during the
day -- at breakfast, after school, dinner, and at bedtime
there are no magical times of the day. And after school is no
more magical than any other time.
Myth number three: Do things with your kids. You
know, take your kid hunting and you won't have to go hunting for
you kid. And Edwin, as much as your dad took you to ball games,
I don't think that was the answer.
Doing activities with parents by itself is associated
with very little risk reduction. Going shopping, tossing a
football, does not create connectedness. Psychological
availability does. The key is giving a young person the
consistent message that they're crazy about them. Yuri
Bronfman-Brenner said, every kid needs someone who's crazy about
them.
Myth number four: The real issue is family divorce. I
was in the House Ways and Means Committee office antechamber, and
there was a big poster. With a red light, it said, "Stop
juvenile violence.' And a green light, it said, "Start
two-parent families." Would that we could.
But underlying this is the assumption that the answer
is two-parent families, and the problem is single parents. What
do we know? Well, young people who come from single-parent
families are more likely than others to be involved in every risk
behavior. The vast majority of these young people are not
involved. Additionally, and importantly, coming from a
single-parent family explains less than two percent of alcohol
use; less than two percent of weapon-related violence; very
little suicide risk at all; very little difference between those
who have had early sexual involvement. Clearly, things other
than the family is going on.
What matters? For violence risk, what we see from ADD
Health: school failure, victimization -- and Dr. Diaz spoke to
that -- future plans, friends drinking, friends' suicide or
suicide attempts, and access to weapons at home all are
associated with violence risk.
For substance abuse: temperament, early physical
maturation, peer drug use, parent smoking, parent drug use.
For suicide attempts, factors that increase risk
include poor school performance, sexual victimization and low
self-esteem. For every group, when we looked at suicide attempt,
family connectedness clearly reduced suicide risk, no matter what
else was going on.
For sexual relations, whether you're male or female,
black, white, Hispanic, being in a relationship greatly increases
your risk of early sexual intercourse. As opportunities
increase, not surprisingly, SO does the likelihood of sexual
intercourse. On the other hand, those young people who see
pregnancy as having a high personal cost for their reputation,
for themselves, for their future are much more likely to delay
intercourse.
What can we conclude? When we look at the factors that
place young people at risk for a range of what Lee Shore (pho.)
calls "crummy outcomes, we consistently see school failure as
part of the picture. School failure is a public health problem
for youth. (Applause.)
It is influenced in part by parental attitudes towards
school. Parents who highly value school have kids who are much
more connected with school, and it is very protective. So, too,
family connectedness is strongly associated with school
connectedness. And these, family and school, are the two major
institutions in the lives of young people.
Families matter. But only in connection with school,
with church, with other community institutions can they be
successful. Parents can't do it alone, and we should stop
expecting them to. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: You know, clearly from Dr. Blum's
comments, the whole issue of connectedness, and the psychological
availability that parents have to their children, is becoming a
theme of today's conference. But I think it's often difficult
for parents to translate that into what they're supposed to do
every day, because each of us inherits, both perhaps biological
and environmental, our own ability to be psychologically
available, our own openness, our upbringing influences, how we
relate to our children.
So are there ways that we can help parents know what
that means? Because for the people who might be watching this or
reading about it, Laura writes about all these parents, and I'm
reading her book. You know, every one of them wakes up in the
morning trying to do what she or he thinks is best for the child
or children in that family.
There are very few parents
I
mean,
there
are
some
but there are very few parents who deliberately set out to
undermine their child's competence, destroy the connectivity, and
create a child who is at risk of failure or who has one of the
problems we're talking about. So before we go on to the next
speaker, I'd like to ask three panelists who have already spoken,
perhaps, to just say a word: how do you become better connected?
How do you become psychologically available?
And Dr. Blum, what I basically heard you say is that
and Mr. Speaker said the same thing - - that one of the reasons
you network and you find other adults who are responsible to be
part of your children's lives is to make up for your own
deficits. You may recognize things about yourself that you may
try to work on, but you're not going to be the best, most
available parent there is. So you try to find a Challengers Boys
and Girls Club. You encourage your child to be active in a
religious activity, or something like that. Is that one of the
answers? Laura?
MS. SESSIONS STEPP: It certainly is. Another thing is
that I think you can plug into their world. Ms. Perlman
mentioned not going to Limp Bizkit concerts, so I'm not saying we
all have to listen to, God help us, Limp Bizkit. But it is
important to know who Limp Bizkit is, and to have listened to
some of those Cds, SO that you know what it is your child is
listening to, and you have that basis for conversation when
they're ready to talk to you about it. So there are ways to sort
of be on the edge of your child's life, but still be connected to
the center.
DR. BLUM: We went and spoke with young people and
said, how do you know when your parents are connected? And they
had wonderful and clear examples. A note on the refrigerator
that says, Jimmy, I'm going to be home late from work today.
There's a sandwich in the refrigerator for you. I'll be back at
5:00 p.m. A phone call from work after school to say, how did
your day go? I'm going to be tied up. Being there when I come
home at night.
My father, who knows the name of the guy that I went
out with, and doesn't say, how was the date that you had with
What's-his-name? My mother who remembers that I had a math test
last Thursday and said, how did you do on that math test, and
didn't forget about it. All of those things say, you count.
MRS. CLINTON: Mr. Speaker?
MR. SPEAKER: Well, just to kind of piggyback on what
Dr. Blum is saying, I think that certainly these are things that
give an indication that you do count. And they are things that
I, as a parent, try to practice, by being involved and knowing
exactly where Edwin is and what he's doing, and knowing times --
there are times, again, it looks like he's reading my mind,
because there are times when I'm not going to be home that I'll
leave some money on the table and say, you know, get you
something to eat. I'll be a little late, and then I'll call and
make sure where he is. And I'll try to keep track of his social
development, where he goes, who he's with, who he's seeing.
And I think that he probably thinks that I'm kind of
overprotective, but there are just so many things that are
happening out there. And I've tried to stay on top of it at all
times. I think it's important in the development of our kids
that we're there and we know -- we've got to know what's going
on, whether they like it or not. And it can be done from a
positive stance, by just saying, yes, I care. I want to know. I
want to know who this guy is. Who are his parents? What do they
do? It's just a thing that you have to do.
MRS. CLINTON: I really appreciate that, because I
think we want to send some strong messages today, but we don't
want people to feel sort of helpless about how they can translate
all of this experience and advice into sort of day-by-day
activities. And as I was listening, I was remembering a
conversation that I once had with a friend of mine, Janet Hill,
who is the mother of Grant Hill and the wife of Calvin Hill. And
they led very busy lives, but they just had hard and fast rules
about staying in contact.
And Janet used to tell me that she had a set time every
day, if she wasn't going to be available physically, to call and
talk with Grant. So even if she was on the other side of the
world, at 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. -- I can't remember what time it
was exactly she'd set the alarm clock, she'd wake herself up,
she'd call. She would make sure he knew she was thinking about
him, SO that the psychological availability, which creates the
psychological space, which is really where we conduct most of our
lives together, was always available. And I think that that's
something that anyone, even a busy parent, if they're constantly
thinking about their child and reaching out, can try to manage to
do.
Our next speaker who is in the audience today is one of
our nation's leading authorities on work and family issues.
Ellen Galinsky is the cofounder and president of the Families and
Work Institute, which conducts pioneering studies on the ways
that job and home life inter-relate. And her recent book, "Ask
The Children,' challenged some of the conventional wisdom about
children's views of their parents' work.
And Ellen has really been a pioneer in making all of us
stop and think about some of those issues. And I remember so
well when I was a young lawyer working how there were rules in a
lot of the places, not only that I represented and visited, that
you could not make personal phone calls.
And around 2:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 3:30 p.m., every
afternoon, you'd see all the women who worked in those offices
sneaking around to call their children, to make sure that their
children got picked up, that they got home, that they were taken
care of. How much better it would be if offices said, look, we
need you to be a good employee and one of the ways we're going to
do that is by supporting you in being a good parent; SO for
goodness' sake, you've got permission to call and find out
whether your child is home safely.
It's those little things that make a big difference,
because they undermine this psychological availability. And I
think there are a lot of parents who are caught in a double-bind,
who feel that they can't express at work what they need to in
terms of staying in touch with and connected with their children.
So, Ellen, will you tell us what employers can do to help their
employees who parent teenage children to be better at that
important job.
MS. GALINSKY: I'd like to point out a trend in this
conference that we haven't talked very much about, before I
address your question. And that is, we've all talked about the
fact that this conference is bringing us a new view of parenting
a teenager; it's not just the problems, but we're looking at the
promise, the potential of young people.
But the other thing that we're doing that is unusual
and I do think is a part of a trend, is that we're listening to
children. We're not just talking about children and
communicating within families; but we as a society have brought
children here and we're listening to children -- it changed the
book that you've written, it has changed the way you parented,
and SO forth.
So I did the same thing in thinking about how to answer
your question. I looked at what children say they need. And the
answers won't be particularly surprising, but -- I think,
actually, they are surprising -- but I think that they're very
important.
The first is, and we've talked about it, the importance
of flexibility of time, that the amount of time is not
necessarily so important as having flexibility in time. And it's
not just little children who need that. When I looked at whether
children felt that they had enough time with their parents, it
was older children, more so than younger children, who were
yearning for time with their parents. One in four companies
provide flexibility on a daily basis for parents.
The second issue is -- and I think Mrs. Clinton just
talked about this is having support that's without jeopardy,
that you don't have to sneak around to make a phone call. And
it's important that be true for mothers as well as for fathers.
I found when I asked the children, for example, what was
important to them, they were particularly yearning for more time
with their dads, even a bit more so than their moms. So we need
to make sure that when we think of employer supports at the
workplace that we're thinking of fathers, as well as thinking of
mothers.
We've been talking about the importance of networks and
support. And the workplace is a very important place to have
that happen. A recent study that I just did of kids, I found
that 80 percent of them said that their mothers worked most of
the time that they were growing up; and 86 percent of them said
that their fathers worked most of the time when they were growing
up, SO the workplace is an important place that can provide
support for families and to help parents navigate, as you say,
those tough moments in being a parent.
I asked kids, for example, what are some of the most
important things that they can do, and they talked about the
importance of being able to talk to them. They said one
14-year-old, don't be afraid to talk to your kids. They may act
like they don't want to, but talking to them is great, and they
want you to whether you think they want to or not. So help at
the workplace with how do you talk to kids. And in fact, I once
did a seminar when I brought in a group of teenagers to talk to
the corporate audience about when does it work in talking to your
kids, and when is it a disaster, and what differentiates those
two things.
The other thing we've been talking about all morning,
too, which is that the small moments make a big difference. When
I asked children what they would most remember from this period
in their childhood, it was those small moments, those everyday
moments the song that you sing when you wake up your kid; the
note on the refrigerator that you're coming home that make the
biggest difference. And we can get that kind of support and we
can learn those little tricks from each other at the workplace,
particularly since SO much of us spend so much time there.
The fourth suggestion that I have also comes from kids.
When I ask children if they had one wish and I just gave them one
wish for what they would change to change the way their mother's
or their father's work affects their lives, children said that
they wished that their parents were less stressed and less tired.
And that's an issue that we've skirted around the edges of all
day. It's a surprise -- only two percent of parents guessed that
their kids would say that, by the way.
Work is becoming more demanding. But interestingly
enough, I also found that when parents have good jobs -- and that
means that they're reasonably demanding, that means that they
have some autonomy in their job, that means that they don't have
to pretend that they don't have a life outside of work at the
workplace, that their supervisors are supportive, things like
that, they not only come home less stressed, which I think has
health repercussions, but they also have more energy for their
kids. But, I think importantly, they go back to work ready to
invest that in the workplace. So it's not a win-lose, it's not
an either/or situation the way we think it is. A good workplace
can lead to better parenting and lead to better workers at the
workplace.
Now, unfortunately, only 12 percent of employers are
doing something specifically to help parents of teenagers. So I
hope that this conference will be the clarion call that helps
this be the next frontier for the workplace. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: You know, Ellen's contribution to this
is SO important, because for a long time, our national dialogue
about work and family has focused mostly on young children -- how
do we provide child care for the preschooler, how do we take care
of the third- and fourth-grader who is going to get out of school
and has nowhere to go.
But we now know how important it is that parents have
these flexible times and these moments and this support in
parenting their teenagers as well. And I really appreciate
Ellen's leadership in this effort.
Another area where parents are asking for help is
monitoring their teens' television and Internet and video game
and music usage. And as I said earlier, I really think we need a
voluntary, uniform rating system that will tell all parents in a
simple and consistent way whether the material their children
wish to view is appropriate.
But until we have such a system in place, we at least
have a variety of ratings that we can rely on, but a lot of
parents don't even know about those ratings and find them
confusing and, therefore, unhelpful, and in addition, don't know
how to use the V-chip, either.
Now, as we know from the poll that was released this
morning, parents think they are supervising their children's
Internet usage. But I don't think it will surprise any of us
that their teenage children tell a very different story. They
don't think they're being supervised at all, and if they have
parents like me, they don't think that their parents could
supervise what they're doing, so they feel pretty much
unsupervised. I'm hopeful that the Task Force on Tools for
Parents and Teens in the Media Age will help address this
important point.
Our next speaker from the audience will speak about the
responsibility of the media and entertainment industry to develop
these tools for parents so that parents can better understand and
monitor the new media.
Judith McHale is the President and Chief Operating
Officer of Discovery Communications and Chair of the Board of The
National Campaign to End Youth Violence. She has been a terrific
bridge between the world of family and work, between the public
and the private sectors. I can't thank her enough for the
leadership she's given on SO many important issues.
And we've asked her to share her views regarding the
role of the media. Judith?
MS. MCHALE: Thank you, Mrs. Clinton, and thank you for
hosting this amazing conference. As a mother of a teenager, I'm
taking copious notes as we go through it. You speak about the
role of media and the responsibility of the media. One of the
sort of trends I hear through this is communication and the
importance of communication with your teenagers.
At the same time, when we are being bombarded with
changes in media, the technological changes around the world are
absolutely stunning, and the choices that our children have to
make every day, the images all of us are constantly being hit
with I think are creating huge, huge obstacles to those moments
of communication. And what should we and what should our role in
the media be as we look at it.
I think one of the things that I sort of tried to, as
I've stepped back and looked at it is this question of you
probably can't shield them from everything that's going on; that
would be an impossible task. But why not take steps to harness
the incredible potential power of all of this sort of information
that's going around and use it in good and positive ways.
Now, that's easier said than done for most parents.
Mrs. Clinton, you alluded to how difficult it is to monitor your
kids' behavior, and I would say there's nothing more no more
hunbling experience than I had this morning, standing behind my
11-year-old, helping me to -- my way through a computer. I think
we have a different kind of digital divide going on between
techno-savvy kids and their parents. So it makes it very, very
difficult for you to understand all that's going on. And,
frankly, I think it's frightening for a lot of us.
When you sort of see that your 11-year-old or your
17-year-old is far more sophisticated than you are in wending and
navigating their way through this new world, how, indeed, are you
going to be able to help them out. And I think we in the media
have a responsibility to help develop tools and communicate tools
to parents and to others to do that, to parents to provide them
with the resources that they need to understand the information
that is flowing into their homes or into their schools that their
kids are dealing with.
I think someone -- Mrs. Clinton, you might have
mentioned earlier, to get that wise site on the Internet with
helps parents understand the kinds of resources that are out
there and guides for the kids. I think tools for families to
help them share some of these experiences together -- we've
Discovery launched our Internet site and we kept in mind families
and tried to develop a tool that would allow families together to
explore the net.
But most importantly, I think we need to develop tools
for kids, with kids, to help them understand the messages that
they are receiving in all these new ways. We spend hundreds of
hours in schools, year after year, helping kids interpret the
written word, but we've done very little to this point to help
them interpret electronic media and the messages that they're
getting from a variety of other ways.
One of the things that I've been trying to do and
we've developed a program at Discovery which, last week, I
announced we were going to take into every school in the state of
Maryland, a media literacy program, which is absolutely designed
to help kids understand the messages that they're getting over
television, through the net, what have you.
And last year, when we launched -- started looking into
this program, I took it into some schools in Maryland myself and
went around to see them, and at every level, it was one of the
things that the kids really wanted. And it was amazing we
went to a high school in Bethesda and it was with a sort of fear
and intrepidation, launching a new program there in front of 500
kids in high school. And we went through the whole program, it's
highly interactive, where they can really see the news, see
sports events, how they are portrayed on television, and begin to
interpret it. And at the end of it we ended early -- one of
my favorite anecdotes was, the principal at the school said,
okay, why don't you guys give us your feedback. I was totally
terrified that when you're dealing with kids this age, what were
they going to say about this boring message.
And I always remember one kid stood up and I would say
he was about 16 or 17, and sort of had a scarf on his head. And
he looked at me and he said, you know he goes, this was really
cool. And which, obviously, as the mother of a teenager, knew
this was high praise -- and he goes, of course, you've ruined
television for me, but that's okay, this is really cool. And you
found the kids wanting to be totally engaged in this process, to
really understand. When you are able to explain to them the
impact of violence on them -- I go back to your brain research
when they understood the impact of some of the football images
that they received, or baseball, or the more violent images or
even sitcoms, the editorial choices that people were making, they
felt empowered. And I think in the media, we have a
responsibility to take those steps to empower kids, to understand
the messages that we're receiving, to understand what's real,
what's make-believe, and in the end, to understand what's right
and wrong. Thank you. (Applause.)
I think Judith's point is especially important, because
one of the challenges that we face is helping our children
understand what the media messages are and what the advertising
messages are, and to sort of deconstruct that, if you will, so
that they are less influenced by them. You know, to see sort of
what the motives behind a lot of advertising are, and not to be
taken in or taken advantage of.
Because one of the concerns we hear a lot about is the
way young people are both depicted in the media and the way young
people are increasingly viewed not as future citizens, not as
individual human beings with promise and potential, but as
consumers, and therefore, as manipulable objects that can be
driven in one direction or another to achieve certain commercial
ends.
And we see how the unrealistic images of women and
girls inspire unhealthy dieting and eating disorders, we see the
racial and ethic stereotypes that are still such a part of our
media, we see how common, gratuitous sex and violence are and we
know that this steady diet of media images, even if we believe we
are strong enough to sort them out and stand against them, send
messages and affect the way people view themselves and others.
Now, our next speaker, also in our audience, has
studied these issues and drawn some interesting conclusions about
the implications of media's depiction of teens.
Susan Bales is the President of Frameworks Institute, a
project of the College-University Resource Institute, which
conducts communications research on social issues. And I'd like
to ask if Susan Bales would tell us: Is there a danger in the
media's portrayal of young people today and what we can do about
that.
MS. BALES: Thank you, Mrs. Clinton, friends and
colleagues. I think there is a serious distortion in the way
that the media presents youth today. And while we talk a lot
about is consequences on youth, I think we're less aware about
its consequences upon us as adults -- first, as parents in the
way that we view our child's peer group and teens in general, but
secondarily and I think even as important is in the way
that we view ourselves as citizens and make decisions about
priorities for public spending.
So I want to talk just a little bit about the research
we've conducted for the last year with funding from the W.T.
Grant Foundation. Looking at survey research, we see that adults
believe that teens today are different than they were in the
past. Only one in six adults will tell you that teens today
share their moral and ethical values.
When asked what descriptors they would use to describe
teens today, they're more likely to talk about materialistic and
selfish teens. If you ask what they would have described teens
20 years ago, those words were more like patriotic and
idealistic.
The reality, as we know, is the reality that we've
talked about here today. When you ask kids what values they hold
to be important, they will tell you that it's honesty and hard
work, it's performance in school, and it's giving and helping
others. And yet, if you present adults, parents with information
about what kids are actually doing in the world, that they're
volunteering, that they are attending cultural events, that they
are succeeding in school, it is the rare parent that will believe
these statistics.
What accounts, then, for something so powerful that it
trumps our own view of reality? My friend, Catherine Hinds
Knowles (pho.), who is here in the audience, says that television
is a great cultural storyteller, and that we get a lot of the
information that we have about the other from television.
In a review that she just did for us of the fall
evening entertainment lineup and its presentation of youth, Catie
found a world that sounds entirely disconnected from the world
that we've described here today. She found that TV teens are
entirely disconnected from their communities. In fact, they're
disconnected from their parents. Parents are often shown as
if they're shown uninvolved, ineffective, often they cause
problems that teens must solve. The teens solve those problems
in conjunction with their peer group, and the problems that they
solve are often trivial and social in nature.
On the news side, a recent study from the Berkeley
Media Studies Group showed that there are two issues that
dominate in television news as it affects youth: Crime and
education. And those have equal prominence in print coverage.
So if you think about it, we are showing violence as a presence
in our children's lives to the same degree that we are showing
violence and crime.
The writer, Richard Rodriguez has said that the stories
invent us. I think what we are seeing in the way that we view
both television, news and entertainment, is that we're making
some false risk assessments. We are being told that a good
parent is one who protects his or her adolescent from the
community at exactly the time that experts in this room would
tell us that our adolescents need to be acculturated into the
community.
That also has consequences for us in that the more that
teenagers are removed from the community, the less actual contact
we have with them, and the more likely we are to believe these
false images of today's youth.
I think we need a different kind of television, news
and entertainment. We need to see more kids working in soup
kitchens, doing performance arts, on track for achievement, and
we need to see them in ways that allow us to believe the
regularity of their lives, not the dissimilarities.
I think that we need to tell ourselves a new story
about youth in America today, and that unless we are able to tell
ourselves a new story, we are more likely to make very bad public
pronouncements and public judgments. And those judgments are
more likely to go in the direction of incarceration, metal
detectors and remedial decisions about children's lives, instead
of positive promotion. Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Susan, before you sit down, could I ask
you to respond? As I travel around and meet with a lot of
parents and others, I cannot tell you how many adults, and
particularly parents, are so emotionally disturbed by this
constant diet of youth violence that the news feeds. And of
course, we've had some terrible, tragic incidents that have
broken through national consciousness, and they are living in
such a state of fear about their own children.
And because their sense of perception is at variance
with their everyday reality, how does one in my position, your
position, any of our positions, how do you respond? Because if
you say, but you know, the statistics are that youth homicide and
suicide are going down, thankfully, that the vast majority of
kids are really doing a good job with their lives, that is so at
variance with the story we've been told that people don't believe
it. How do you move us from the story we are currently being
told and, therefore, telling, to a more realistic story that will
give people more of a sense of hope and empowerment over their
own lives?
MS. BALES: I think it's a really important question
and I think as researchers -- our innate tendency is to confront
people with the facts, and what we know from the cognitive
sciences is that if the facts don't fit the frame of references,
it's the facts that are going to go, not the frame of reference.
Karen Pittman and I were talking about this before we
walked in. We have to tell a complete story to the American
public and to each other. It's not a little fact here, a little
fact there. It's a narrative. It's a story about children's
lives. And you can't do a focus group with Americans today
without them telling you we want to see solutions and we want to
see programs that work.
Everyone in this audience knows hundreds of programs
that work. They are absolutely invisible in news, and the notion
that kids are involved in programs in invisible on entertainment.
So those are the stories I think that we have to surface that
allow us to make sense of these positive statistics.
MRS. CLINTON: I'm really glad you have sort of put that
on our agenda for the conference because I think it may be one of
the most important -- in addition to giving parents hope and
tools and ideas about connectivity, in a very practical way, this
creation of a new, more accurate story that runs counter to the
hysteria and the images and the stereotypes, which really
paralyzes people -- because if you think nothing works, then why
do you invest in anything, because it won't work anyway, so why
go to the trouble of putting that after-school program in your
school, or lowering class size to make the school experience more
intimate, and all the things that could make a difference in the
lives of kids.
And it's one of the biggest problems those of us who
are in the public arena face because you come forward with
solutions like this, and SO often the louder voices are the
punitive, anti-kid, don't invest because it won't work, kind of
stories. And it's difficult to find a way to make it a more
realistic view, as you're advocating. So I hope you'll write out
that narrative with your colleagues and share it with us.
One of the reasons that the media can have such a great
influence on how adults think about young people is that many
adults no longer have any contact with a young person. A
majority of adults have no personal interaction with teenagers
whatsoever. We have disconnected the lives of teenagers from the
lives of the majority of adults in our society.
If you live in a retirement community, part of the
reason you live there is so you never have to see anybody who is
below a certain age. If you live in a gated community, if you go
the same way to work every day and you're in the same
environment, and you don't have teenagers, you're not involved in
your community, and you don't even have sidewalks anymore in your
towns or cities to walk down, or you think it's too dangerous to
walk down the ones that are there you're not going to have
that kind of interaction, and you, therefore, are prone to
believe the stories that paint the worst possible picture of our
young people.
Now, in contrast, our next speaker has given his life
over to helping the children in his community succeed. Geoff
Canada is the President and CEO of the Rheedlan Centers for
Children and Families, and the author of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun,
a personal history of violence in America. You know, Geoff is
also a hero to many for his groundbreaking work in Harlem, and
he's here to tell us about what we can do to create more of those
connections, and especially how we can use community
organizations to help children who live in destitute and
particularly disadvantaged circumstances.
Please welcome Geoff Canada. (Applause.)
MR. CANADA: Thank you very much. I think that we have
to come to grips that in America right now we have communities
that some of us wouldn't drive through. We have communities
where people literally fear for their lives when they go into
those communities and it's the kind of places we tell our
children they can't go to.
There are people living in those communities; there are
families raising their children. They are struggling. When I
talk to families in those communities about their hopes for their
children, their first hope is that their child will be alive and
will stay safe. And this is a very concrete thing. Even with
the good message that things are better for lots of children and
lots of communities, there are still targeted communities in this
country where things are not really good for their children.
I think that we have to really figure out how we begin
to work with communities that are failing. When the community
itself is a threat, and a parent has real reasons to doubt that
their child can move safely from home to school, from school to
anyplace after school the playgrounds aren't working, the
institutions of faith aren't working in those communities. The
civic organizations, the block associations, the tenant
associations they're not functioning. You don't have adults
involved in Little Leagues. How do we expect children to
flourish in those kinds of conditions. And those are the kinds
of conditions lots of our children are growing up in and our
families are struggling with.
We think -- and one of the things we started to do at
the Rheedlan Centers for Children and Families is really just
carve out an area for us. And it's the right size for us; it's
23 blocks in central Harlem, and we started something called the
Harlem Children's Zone. And the idea is to work with all of the
children and institutions in that community to really bring
everybody together around a consensus that children are first.
No matter what else you do, let's figure out how we put children
first.
So we start with what we know that works. And this is
not rocket science. We know all of the brain development work
from zero to 3, and so we have something called a baby college
where we make it accessible to all of the children and all of the
infants in that area. We know about good nutrition and well-baby
check-ups for expecting parents, and we make sure our parents get
those. We're in the public schools. We have a terrific
AmeriCorps program.
We believe in bringing these young people -- what
energy, what creativity -- the very young people who are doing
terrific in these environments are the ones who can give a
message of hope to these other elementary school young people in
a way that none of us, with this salt-and-pepper hair could
ever do for young people. It matters tremendously that young
people feel they are part of the solution.
You know, what happens is young people get such a sense
of despair. Here they have all this youth and vitality, and
everything suggests that you're not going to make it. Well,
don't they want to get out there and show folks we are going to
make it and we're going to lead this charge. One of the things
that AmeriCorps does for us is it allows us to get these
volunteers, get them well-trained, place them in those public
schools, teach young people how to stay safe, how to deal with
conflict. Young people want to remain safe. Their parents want
to get involved. We think that's a critical part of this work.
Then we go right into the adolescence. You know, the
one thing we do in our adolescent program is to make sure our
young people can tell their own stories. We have a newspaper
called Harlem Overheard that young people produce. It has a
25,000 person circulation, and it really tells it from their
point of view what they're dealing with.
We have a radio show and a TV show called The Real
Deal, where young people are the ones who actually put on -- they
produce the show and they put on the show, and again, it tells
their story. We find so many of our young people are filled with
such a rage that no one knows what's going on, no one understands
their condition, and they have no one to tell their side of
things. When they hear about what's going on, they can't figure
out a way to say, no, this is how we really feel. Giving young
people a voice is absolutely critical. And especially in those
teen years, when they have a real view on -- you know, young
people are very sophisticated, and often we don't give them a
means to sort of tell us in their very sophisticated ways what
they think, with enough time. You give a young person 700-800
words to tell a story, they've got enough time to really give a
point of view. And we think that's absolutely critical.
The idea is to rebuild a sense of community. And we're
not the only ones doing this. People are doing this across the
country. Some of the folks in this room are doing that. We
think that we've got to really put a new emphasis on building
community and making sure our young people know that we, as the
elders in that community, are part of a community-building
venture, with them as partners, that respect their talent and
their energy, but really gives them the kinds of resources that
we think young people need in order to do it.
And let me just say the last thing, which is I think
the young people are watching us very closely for signals about
whether or not we're serious about their development and their
care. And I had this whole conversation with young people around
summer youth employment. Boy, was that a whole issue. And they
kept asking me, why doesn't this nation want us to work? What is
wrong with young people having jobs in the summer? Why, if we've
got billions and billions of dollars of surplus -- (applause)
you know, this is, I think, our nation at its most cynical. And
I just think that we've got to watch the messages we give to
young people.
They're watching us. Sometimes people think things
happen here and no one is really paying attention. And young
people are saying, well, we don't understand, if they're really
serious about us working and being productive and staying out of
trouble this summer, how come they're not supporting us. I think
we've got to really think about how we give young people
messages.
This is particularly a time you know, the only bad
thing about having such a surplus in this nation is everybody is
trying to figure out what are your priorities, and where do we
fit in. And we've done some terrific things in moving toward
health care for young people. And I know the role that you and
the President have paid in that. And also looking at
after-school, and there are lots of folks who supported that.
But there's lots of unfinished business in this country that I
think we need to give young people a message about how we feel
about them that allows them to say, you know what, they really
are with us and they're rooting for us and they're giving us what
we need to succeed. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: I really hope even more people will find
out what Geoff and his colleages are doing because it's really a
comprehensive effort to make sure that young people have both the
services they need, but also the support the personal support,
so that they feel that they are partners in this venture of
community building.
And I commend you for using AmeriCorps SO creatively.
AmeriCorps, as the President said in the very beginning, was
created just five years ago, but more than 150, 000 Americans have
served in AmeriCorps. And I hope that we'll be increasing those
numbers, because most of them are involved in serving young
people in mentoring, in tutoring, in organizing.
And Geoff mentioned a particularly important issue, and
that's after-school and summer jobs to go back to Laura's
point about respect, responsibility and relationship.
Responsibility is a key to that. And, in fact, four out of five
young people do hold a job at one time or another while they are
in school. And we need to do more to provide those kinds of
opportunities.
And I'd like to ask Harvard anthropologist Katherine
Newman, who has studied the experience of low-wage workers in
low-income communities, to talk with us for a minute on this.
Her book is entitled, No Shame In My Game. And I think all of us
can look more at what can be done by employers and levels of
government to provide those opportunities SO that kids have more
sense of success for their future.
Dr. Newman.
DR. NEWMAN: Thank you, Mrs. Clinton. I want to thank
Geoff Canada for raising the crucial issue of work. It's not
something we talk about very much when we think about teenagers.
We think about parents, we think about communities, religious
institutions, but we don't talk about the world of work because
we think that's what adults do, not what teenagers do.
But I want to argue in this conference that that's a
big mistake. The nation's teenagers are at work, and we need to
devote some attention to what they get out of it, because the
sheer size of the teenage labor force really commends us to think
about it. Over half of the nation's teenagers, 16-19, are in the
United States labor force. The proportion of American teens who
work has increased over the last decade. About a third of the
nation's teenagers work more than 35 hours a week. And their
wages have risen steadily over the last 20 years.
About one in six teenage workers earned the minimum
wage in 1999, but less than 2 percent of those teenage workers
received the earned income tax credit, which is primarily
targeted at families, and most 16-19-year-olds don't have
families yet.
Work opportunity is crucial for the well-being of
teenagers, especially in the neighborhoods that Geoff Canada was
talking about. Their parents need them to help provide support
for the households they live in. We're not talking about gold
chains and sneakers here. We're talking about central
contributions that teenagers make, especially to the support of
poor households. They are expected to help provide for their own
school expenses, for their transportation, for their books, for
the tuition they pay at junior colleges in communities like
Harlem. They help their parents pay for the phone bill, for the
furniture they sit on, for the utilities they consume.
This pattern of teenage contribution to family
well-being will not surprise anyone who either lived through,
remembers, or read about the Great Depression. Because that's
what teenagers did during the Great Depression, and that's what
they still do in the nation's poor communities.
Now, some researchers have suggested that working is
bad for teenagers because it distracts their attention from
schooling. And of course, this can be the case if teenagers work
too many hours. And for middle class kids, like my children, who
have many, many resources, the choice to focus exclusively on
school is probably quite sensible, but it's also a luxury. It's
a luxury my children have to focus just on school.
Teenagers from Mr. Canada's neighborhood often find
that that choice is foreclosed to them. But are these teens
harmed by working? My research in central Harlem also suggests
not. The structure, the discipline, the mentoring that they
receive in the workplace spilled back into the schoolyard and the
classroom and helps them perform better in school. It's in the
workplace that employers teach them how to manage their time, how
to be responsible to others, how to display and perform
motivation. Those workplace lessons surface in the classroom.
And the Harlem teenagers that I studied report consistently that
their school performance went up when they got a job, not down.
Kids who were poised to drop out didn't, and they
didn't because there were employers and managers and older
workers looking over their shoulders, paying attention to how
they were doing in school. And sometimes in communities that
have a lot of disorganized lives around them, those adults, those
employers are the only adults who are paying attention to the
performance of poor teenagers who work in school. They keep
after those teens, they monitor their report cards, they give
them financial bonuses when they get good grades, they help them
pay for their junior college tuition.
And I might add, this is a contribution employers make
that goes largely unrecognized, and we should never discount the
importance of civic recognition in helping employers to do the
right thing by their teenagers. So if we are looking for a
supply of mentors in the United States, we might think about
employers as a very good source. They're not social workers,
they're not charity workers, but they do an enormous amount to
help youth over developmental hurdles in the course of making a
living. And we ought to thank them for it.
And while we're at it -- and this is the last point I'd
like to make I think we should recognize that it's in the work
world that teenagers from all kinds of backgrounds in the United
States learn about core American values. That great American
mainstream out there values work and employment above any other
source of honor and civic identity. And it's in the workplace
that teenagers, especially those from poor and disadvantaged
communities, learn the great value of being part of that
mainstream. So to deny them that opportunity is to deny them
access to that very central mainstream identity that they achieve
in the workplace.
Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: In a few minutes we're going to be
saying good-bye to all of the people who are participating in
this conference by the satellite link. And I'm very grateful to
all of them who have taken place. I hope that they will continue
these discussions, and I hope that they will look for ways that
they can improve the lives of their teens and their local
communities.
One of the people that we want to hear from is a young
woman who knows firsthand how service and being actively involved
in her community has made a difference. Gabriella Contreras is
only 14, but she's been setting examples for others since she was
a tiny child. She came to us through Secretary Donna Shalala's
Girl Power Project, which is a national campaign to encourage
girls, age 9-14, to make the most of their lives.
And, Gabriella, I hope you will tell us what young
people can do to help themselves and their peers.
MS. CONTRERAS: Okay. Well, I bet you're all wondering
what kind of girl power a 14-year-old has. My attitude is to
motivate. Relating my personal experiences, you may realize kids
don't have to be limited by their age. Allowing youth to
volunteer at a young age, as we get older, we learn to be
concerned, solve problems in our community.
At the age of five, I began volunteering at the elderly
care home my mom, Grace Contreras, owned and managed at that
time. I visited and played my violin, and I was accepted by
these people there.
Recently I asked myself a very important question
these years of our youth, are they a curse or a blessing?
(Laughter.) It may be funny, but in my opinion, as youth we have
the opportunities to have fun going to the movies, shopping,
hanging out with our friends, and also taking on the role of
questioning how things are done, searching deep within ourselves,
stepping beyond the demands of homework. after-school activities
with our free time, get involved, take a stand and speak up as a
positive peer.
I admit it is not easy being a youth if the negative
peer pressure is very evident. At the age of 9, in the 3rd
grade, I moved to a new school, Ross Ridge (phonetic) Elementary
Middle Magnet School. There were a lot of riots at the high
school across the street, and also high schools around the city
at the time. The police and the SWAT team blocked off the street
and they had to break up the gang fights that were happening
there.
Seeing what was happening from our classroom windows,
we were frightened, we were scared. I gathered my friends during
our lunchtime and our lunch hour, and we made posters saying,
Stop The Violence; Give Hugs, Not Drugs simple sayings.
Shouting as we marched along our school fence, facing
the high school, I created a club that year, Club BAD, the Bealor
Don't Do Drugs Club. I met with the school principal, Dr.
Congroda (pho.) Gomez, he listened to my ideas, approved the
club, and annual schoolwide peace marches, to kick off the school
year in a positive way.
Today, the club members include K through 8th graders
who are involved in volunteering and educational projects. The
club is going strong into its sixth year now. As my mom, Grace
Contreres (pho.) and my dad, Richard Contreres, even though
they're divorced, continue to supervise the club, enabling youth
to mentor youth.
I realize what a great amount of faith, belief, respect
they have for us, even at our young age. In '97, I was invited
as the Arizona youth delegate to the national summit called
"America's Promise,' it was alliance for youth pointing kids in
the right direction. I met the co-chair, which I was very
grateful I go to meet, General Colin Powell. I gave a speech on
creative youth volunteerism.
My mom and I attended the breakout sessions. I learned
the importance of the community youth-based organizations
mentoring us youth. I asked my mom to help me organize a Tucson
citywide youth summit. I called it "Great Resources for Youth.'
Tucson and all the students, the parents, businesspeople, city
and state officials attended. Everyone valued and shared this
information that we brought to them.
I'm currently on the National 4H, American Lung,
Mayor's Council and Library of Congress youth boards, thanks to
finding out there are such youth boards out there for us.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have even known. Recently, a total of 33
youth were being arrested throughout Tucson for copycat Columbine
threats. I'm sure we all remember that happening. I conducted a
citywide peace march, like the annual schoolwide peace marches we
have at our school. The entire city came together, supporting
the school, holding banners saying, "Tucson stands for peace, si
se puede por la paz, yes, we can have peace, safe schools, safe
streets.
Well, I created a motto I share with my club and I
leave with you now. And I hold it dearly to my heart as well:
Even as youth, we can make a positive difference in our home,
neighborhood, school and community.
In conclusion, I challenge adults to include us,
encourage us, have faith in youth of all ages in our nation. How
can we as youth make a difference? One important easy way:
Volunteer with us to make a difference in our communities, enable
us to have a voice by organizing schoolwide and citywide peace
marches, or at the little, just get involved with our daily
lives. Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: I'd love for Gabriela's mother to stand
up, and we can -- (applause) - - acknowledge you. Well, our final
speaker is someone who spends all day every day with young
people. We were talking before about how the majority of adults
don't have any interconnection with young people. But Jay
Engeln, who is a principal, in fact, the principal of the year,
really is part of the adult community that cares deeply about
young people.
I think it's important that we hear from someone such
as he who is the Met Life National Association of Secondary
Schools Principals Principal of the Year at the William J. Palmer
High School in Colorado Springs. The high school has a slogan:
Together, we can make a difference. And so, if you would, Mr.
Engeln, if you would tell us what you recommend to schools so
that they can make a difference.
MR. ENGELN: Thank you, Mrs. Clinton. I would like to
begin with just a very brief story. In Washington last October,
I had to give a speech to a large banquet, and it was supposed to
be about 20 minutes. You can wing five minutes, but 20 minutes,
you have to do a little bit of preparation, and things were not
falling in place.
Until I took a tour of the President Roosevelt
Memorial. And inscribed on the wall was a quote: "No country,
however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources."
Relevant in the Depression, but in the context of our young
people, it's right on target today. And at that point, all the
remarks that I was going to make just fell into place.
Youth are 24 percent of our population, but they are
100 percent of our future. They are our most valuable resource,
an asset that we cannot afford to waste.
We do have a challenge in education, and that's to meet
the educational needs of all students to prepare them to be
successful in a rapidly changing world. But as Dr. Blum said
earlier, parents can't do it alone, the schools can't do it
alone, either. But working together, we can have an impact on
the youth of this country.
As Mrs. Clinton stated, our motto at Palmer High School
is, "Together, we can make a difference. II And I truly feel this
motto is the main reason for the renaissance of our school. Not
too long ago, Palmer High School was discussed quite openly about
being closed declining enrollment, test scores that were not
where they should be, very transient population and decaying
facilities.
But with all entities of the community coming together,
parents, students, staff, community members and businesses, we
have seen a major renaissance in this downtown school. Keep in
mind, it's four buildings on three city blocks that are not
adjacent to each other with major city streets intersecting our
campus. So it's a unique location for a school.
Developing partnerships with families and parents is a
concept whose time has come. Actively involving parents in their
children's learning is essential. And as building
administrators, teachers, we must be proactive in this endeavor.
A lot of parents come to the schools for conferences, a lot of
parents come to open houses, but there is a significant number of
parents that do not come to the schools, for whatever reason.
Maybe their last experience was not a good one. Maybe the last
time they were at the school was because of a suspension. Or,
maybe, when they were in school they were suspended. And we must
connect with these parents if we're going to be successful and
meet the needs of all kids.
I'd like to share with you four examples at Palmer High
School that we have found that have worked for us to connect with
this population of parents that we were not reaching out to
before.
First of all, student recognition dinners. I'm not
talking about the traditional team banquets or anything of that
type. But, instead, finding small successes maybe it's just a
student going from an F grade to the D; maybe it was a student
that had fewer absences one month than the previous month; or
maybe it is a student that did something kind for another
individual in the building.
We've developed partnerships with restaurants in the
community where these kids live and have the dinners there. And
we've gotten sponsors for these dinners. And we've had
tremendous response from parents coming to these informal
sessions, and then it's been a chance to open those lines of
communication and to facilitate further involvement of those
parents in our school community.
A second example is connected with an outreach,
community service outreach that our school does. And that's
every year we work our human anatomy and physiology students
work to increase the minority numbers on the national blood donor
register -- I'm sorry, bone marrow register. There are not
enough minorities represented as far as bone marrow donors. So
they take that upon themselves to solicit more members.
They go to churches in communities where the
congregation is predominantly minority -- and I go with the
students to support them in their endeavor, but also to use that
as an opportunity to dialogue with parents, with community
members and, again, to facilitate those lines of communication.
I'll also go and speak at Sunday school classes and meet with
other local community groups.
A third program that has worked well for us is a
presence in the community. And I've heard a number of people
talk about community service. I think that is a very, very
important aspect to incorporate into schools, because what
happens is, community service is a two-way street. If we can
demonstrate to the community what we are doing for them, they are
more willing to come back and do for us. And it has been a
win-win relationship within our communities.
And, finally, assets for youth. I know there is going
to be a speaker later today in one of the panel sessions on
developmental assets. We have incorporated those assets for
youth that we can support within our school we have
incorporated them into our school goals, into our school
objectives and made that a part of our life at Palmer High
School.
The results we've seen: decreased dropout rate,
increased graduation rate, a significant decline in discipline
referrals, test scores that are among the highest of any public
or private school in southern Colorado, a waiting list now to
come into our school almost doubling the enrollment from where it
was seven years ago, and absolutely no discussion of wanting to
close the school down again.
Together, we have made a different at Palmer High
School and I am convinced, together, we can make a difference as
a nation.
Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. CLINTON: Well, I think we've heard not only an
overview of issues affecting young people, but some very
positive, practical solutions that can be put to work in the
lives of our young people through service and jobs and outreach
and mentoring, through the parents and our families trying to be
given more support to do what parents want to do -- and that is
play a positive, productive role in their children's lives. The
recommendations about what schools can do and community groups
all of that together really adds up to a very positive agenda
that gives each one of us something to not only think about, but
actually to do.
I was struck as Mr. Engeln was making his remarks that
at the very beginning our keynote speaker, Mr. Ben Casey, talked
about how the Y was changing to adapt to the needs of families
and young people today, providing shopping services and dry
cleaning services as a way of getting the parents involved.
And I'm not at all convinced that children are any
different today than they ever were; but I am absolutely
convinced that our society and its institutions have changed. So
I think rather than putting SO much attention on trying to make
our kids somehow adapt, we should be thinking of ways that our
institutions can change to be more supportive of our kids and
provide what our children have always needed and the kind of
connectedness and support and love and discipline that every
young person really wants and needs from us.
Many of the projects that the administration has tried
to do over the last seven years come from research that has been
done over the last 10 to 15 years. I remember being involved
with the W.T. Grant Foundation some years ago, talking about what
we needed to do to provide more school-to-work help and more
support for teens in the work place, to make a better connection
between education and work, and to provide service opportunities.
We haven't done enough to implement all that we know needs to be
done, but we certainly, I think now, are aware of what we should
be doing.
I'm sorry that we're not going to have more time right
now for discussion. But we have been running late and we need to
be sure we go on to provide the opportunity in the breakout
sessions that all of you are looking forward to for more debates
and dialogue and more suggestions.
We've already, I think, said goodbye to our friends who were
participating via satellite. But now I want to offer you a
chance to break for lunch. I hope that the conversation
continues at the lunch tables. And please proceed through these
doors to the State Dining Room for lunch. And thank you all SO
much for being part of this conference. (Applause.)
END
1:30 P.M. EDT
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