Putting Children First

By: Jeff Jacobs – April 1, 2004

St. Louis Park can take great pride in having started the Children First initiative and even greater pride by doing more than simply talk about it. As with most things in life that are worthwhile, but sometimes hard work, it is one thing to talk about something and yet another to step up and do it.

Children First is not a program or a place or even a thing. It’s a philosophy. It’s an idea that holds to the notion that the community, the entire community and everyone in it, will build and strengthen certain developmental assets in our youth by placing in their able hands the very tools they will need to operate the process they will one day inherit. These assets are essential building blocks to get them where we all want them to be. There are 40 of these assets, but no one I know has them memorized. You don’t need to.

• Building assets may be as complex as helping a young person who is facing the many social challenges confronting our kids today to get on the right track or as simple as making eye contact with a teenager and acknowledging she exists.
• It may be as hard as setting boundaries or holding young people accountable for their behavior so they can resist the temptations we know all too well will hurt them or as easy as reading in the schools an hour a week.
• It may be as big an event as the Youth Summit, which is set for April 29 at the Jewish Community Center, where 300 kids in fourth through 12th grade in St. Louis Park will come and speak about issues they believe are important; or it may be as small as one person asking one kid one time what he thinks about something and then taking the time to just listen to what that kid has to say, affirming that he has something valuable to say.

It’s as easy or as hard as we want it to be. You don’t need to be an expert in anything to build assets. You don’t need special skills. You need only know that, for better or worse, children carry into adulthood what they are taught as kids and that whatever your station in life, you are one of their teachers.

How do you teach them? Is it magic? Not really.

• Support them, empower them, set expectations and hold them accountable.
• Be a role model; imagine they are watching everything you do and hearing everything you say and will repeat it when they get the chance.
• Show them how to use their time constructively; spend time with them even if it’s just watching them grow up.
• Show them that trust is built one truth at a time. Never lie to them.
• Encourage them to stand up and tell the world who they are because they are valued as people. In other words, it’s as much magic as you can imagine.

Children First is about the transition of power, both economic and social, to the next generation. It’s about shaping the kind of people who will take over where we leave off and become the stewards of our community, our country and our world. The task is no less than that and we all have a responsibility to be a part of it.

I find it odd when people say they don’t have any impact on the future when all over town the schools are filled with the future almost every day. Tomorrow’s pretty easy to see actually. It’s in the churches and synagogues, the shopping malls, playgrounds and bike trails; it’s running all over town.

Still think you don’t have an impact on the future? Smile at it and see if it smiles back.

Jeff Jacobs is the mayor of St. Louis Park.