"I finished the book!" Why We Should Volunteer with Youth

The Oregonian recently published an alarming article on the decline of mental health among Oregon teens. Although many of the large number of commentators focused on the evils of cell phones, much of the reaction fell along political lines. Conservatives tended to blame youth's emotional fragility on liberal permissiveness. Liberals pointed to conservative economic policies.

What I have observed in my thirty years or so of volunteering with children in classrooms and other venues is that youth need caring people in their lives. I was stunned to learn a few months ago that in a city festooned with signs proclaiming that "refugees are welcome here," refugee children who are desperate to learn English lack sufficient tutors. But it's not just refugees who are suffering. In the past couple of decades class sizes have gone up and the stability of many homes have declined. On average, Americans of all ages have fewer close friends than we used to. Many of our youth trust no one.

Most of us can do something about this--and I don't mean just blaming the other side. Start by checking with your local school about volunteer activities. You can play a crucial role in a child's life, and in spending more time with youth you will have a much more informed opinion on what sort of larger political, economic, social, and cultural changes would help youth. You will also be pushed to develop larger reservoirs of patience and empathy.

One of the many times I learned that lesson was about ten years ago, working with a boy with severe behavior problems. He had just been allowed back into a classroom, and I spent an hour each week helping him to work his way through a book. He tried everything he could think of to get me to read the book for him, and he seemed incapable of reading more than three or four words at a time without kicking the wall, staring at the ceiling, stumbling over words, and bitterly complaining about the cruel task at hand. I think I hated the process as much as he did. I was discouraged. But somehow we inched our way through most of the book before my time with him mercifully ended.

About a month later, he came jetting toward me on the playground yelling: "I finished the book! I finished the book!"

I don't know if he remembers that achievement, but I'll never forget it.