February 5, 2004

Talking about relationships at forum on youth behavior

The Yellow Springs community cares about its recent problems involving teenagers and wants to understand why they happened. And adults and young people alike want to have a better relationship with each other and to make the village a positive environment for everyone.

Those messages seemed clear at Monday night’s forum at Yellow Springs High School, where a crowd of about 150 parents, teachers, young people and community members filled the gym bleachers. The meeting, sponsored by the high school, was called in response to recent incidents of youth vandalism and misbehavior. However, the purpose of the forum was not to focus on past problems but rather to look ahead toward possible solutions, YSHS Principal John Gudgel said in his introduction.

“Our purpose is to be positive, not adversarial,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for us to listen, learn and share. Hopefully, this will be the start of something good as it pertains to our young people.”

A follow-up meeting will take place Feb. 23, Gudgel said.

The listening began immediately, as Don Wallis reported on his recent meetings with 12 YSHS students, during which he asked what the community needs to know about what life is like for its young people.

One after another, Wallis reported, the young people said that they felt fully supported by the community when they were young children. But as they got older, they said, something changed.

“I had a lot of support from the community when I was a child,” said one youth. “It’s like, they really support the children and there are all these programs and after-school activities and it’s like, ‘Oh, you guys are so great, look at these wonderful children.’ And then, as soon as I hit high school there was this wall in between the community and the students. And it’s really starting to get to me.”

Said a second, “We just become a problem.”

And another: “There comes a certain point where it feels like we just kind of get left behind.”

After Wallis gave his report, forum attenders broke up into small groups to respond to what they heard and to share ideas. Those in the group covered by the News requested that their names not be used.

“I’m shocked. I feel badly,” a parent said in response to Wallis’s report.

Others suggested that teenagers need to accept some responsibility for the barriers they feel with adults, and one young person in the group said that “a lot of teenagers don’t realize that adults have feelings, too.”

Several adults questioned whether the recent vandalism incidents were anything but normal teenage behavior. One parent, for instance, called an act of vandalism involving BB guns a “stupid mistake” in which good kids made bad decisions.

Another suggested that an adult attitude of “police-bashing,” which she believes many local adults express, may influence young people to disrespect police.

Adults need to make clear to young people when they cross the line into unacceptable behavior, said another parent. Parents need to communicate to teens that they are still loved as individuals even when they commit wrong actions, the parent said.

Regardless of whether the vandalism was normal behavior, if young people in Yellow Springs feel abandoned by adults, that’s a problem, one parent said.

A feeling of abandonment often begins at home, said one man, and if teenagers feel unaccepted by their own family, they may express that feeling to the world. “If it’s in your home, it’s everywhere,” he said.

“I’m puzzled,” said one man, who talked about how adults in Yellow Springs turn out in large numbers to young people’s plays and musical and sporting events. “How can it be perceived that we’re not supportive?” he said.

Disrespect toward young people often comes through in an attitude rather than actions, said a young person, who said it often seems that adults focus only on teenagers’ negative actions rather than positive ones. Another young person cited a Yellow Springs News article from last summer that, he said, by implying that all kids who go downtown are doing drugs, fed into adults’ negative stereotypes.

One parent said that parents show disrespect for young people when they assume teens are not responsible or helpful.

“I think fear is often interpreted as disrespect,” said a parent, noting that he has sometimes felt anxious downtown around large groups of teenagers, especially when his children were very young.

Several parents talked about their challenge trying to raise their teenage children, maintaining parental authority but doing so in a respectful way.

Parents need to keep communication lines open, said one young person. “Don’t give up on talking to your kids,” the students said to the adults in the group.

After the small group discussions, forum attenders reconvened in a large group, where each small group presented what it saw as the community’s most challenging issue relating to young people.

Issues raised included a weakening of a local sense of community and how that lack hinders effective parenting; a need to discuss community standards; a lack of concern and compassion; lack of trust in relationships; the need for mutual respect among young people, teachers and parents; adults, negative perception of young people; the need for young people to have a place to hang out; problems with drug and alcohol abuse by both youth and adults; a need for more positive activities for young people; and the need for young people to learn to better structure their time.

In the discussion that followed, Ann Kent suggested that parents and school officials need to work on building a stronger “school community” in which parents feel more involved with the high school and middle school. Michael Brown drew applause when he emphasized the “need to set community standards about what’s right or wrong, to challenge our kids that that isn’t acceptable behavior and to express that.”

Several students spoke of the need for a place for teenagers to hang out, and some expressed interest in the local bowling alley. YSHS senior Martin Borchers said that he will take that on as a senior project.

When a student said that the egging incidents were a result of boredom and a lack of things to do in town, Lisa Crosswhite, who grew up in Yellow Springs, responded, “Boredom has been here since the beginning of time. You don’t have to egg someone’s house because you’re bored.” Referring to young people, Crosswhite also said that many adults “tend to forget what it’s like to be their age. Our kids really are good kids.”

Toward the end of the forum, Barbara Hardman asked, “I’ve heard a number of times that teenagers feel disrespected. Could a young person tell me how we disrespect you?”

In response, YSHS student Nathania Dallas said, “For me, I feel disrespect when it feels like if I’m downtown, I’m a problem, like people think we’re doing drugs or coming up with a scheme. And not just downtown but everywhere. When I walk down the street I would like someone to just see me as a person.”

—Diane Chiddister