Other People’s Kids

Other People’s Kids…at the Library

It’s often said that it’s easier to spend other people’s money…it’s also much easier to lose our patience with other peoples kids.  When it comes to discussions of common places like schools, playgrounds, and libraries, it seems that it’s always other people’s kids who cause all of the problems.  Combining our intolerance of other peoples kids with a growing tendency for “zero tolerance” policies, we end up with more young people being banned, kicked out, suspended, or expelled from programs and places designed to facilitate success.  While expulsion happens with all youth, it is significantly more prevalent with youth who are poor, non-white and living in neighborhoods made up of other poor, non-white families.

The following is a posting from a recent Minneapolis Star Tribune Whistleblower.

A metro area library “has become the hangout spot for a huge number of truant teens and equal amount of people who would at least seem to be small time criminals. The librarians, it’s fair to say, are scared out of their wits of these people. The security guards do nothing. Short of a knifing, just about anything goes. Anyone who has legitimate library work to do is in for a shock: there is no quiet to be found here. Worst of all, kids aren’t safe there. They can’t be. Not with what’s going on there. Do something. Please. I have pressed this case with library officials to no avail.”

Will rowdy kids always be part of a public space or can something be done to curb bad behavior? How far should library staff go to guarantee peace and quiet?

Within 24 hours the entry had generated 45 comments.  Of the 45 comments over half advocated some type of expulsion, most often involving police action to get (and preferably to keep) the young trouble makers out of the library.

While not a statistically representative sample of our communities, the responses are a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do.  Having the opportunity to work with a number of our St. Paul libraries this past year, this issue is of particular interest to me.  The library’s primary goals were to limit the number of escalating behavior incidents that result in expulsion or police intervention and continue to attract the growing numbers of youth who rely on the library… all without compromising the climate that multi-age users expect from the library.

As we’ve worked together here are some of the lessons we’ve learned:

We have to stop being afraid:

Fear creates problems for both youth and staff.   Adults feeling intimidated results in both self-fulfilling prophecies of escalating behavior as well as young people feeling dismissed and disrespected by the adults in charge.   Adult patrons, sensing the fear, worry that no one is in charge.

Accountability is learned, not inflicted:

Many of us cling to the belief that punishment is the sole means for teaching accountability, spare the rod and spoil the child is a mantra held by many.  The fact is that young people learn to be accountable over time.   The process involves:

1. Connections with many adults who teach them how to be responsible.
2. Experiencing the natural outcomes of their choices…allowing them to both succeed and fail without condemnation or rejection.

Throwaway solutions don’t work:

Expelling kids from opportunities does not prepare them to succeed.   Throwing them out of the library, school, or the community solves nothing because when they come back…they come back worse.   Young people learn from involvement coupled with patient assistance to learn how to succeed.   Our unfortunate overuse of “zero tolerance policies” disguised as behavior management, has significantly accelerated the disproportionate number of poor, non-white youth who are not only more likely to be incarcerated…but barred from the opportunity to learn the vocational, social, and economic tools of success.

Youth without privilege see the world differently:

Privileged youth have multiple options for computers, socialization, and safe places to hangout.  Unprivileged youth don’t.   Consequently, they interpret behavior from a different vantage point than their more fortunate peers.  For instance, in survival-based neighborhoods, letting others treat you with disrespect is dangerous…simply because there won’t be someone to insure your safety when the disrespect escalates to violence.   Therefore, survival-based youth interpret public confrontation as a form of disrespect that cannot go unanswered.  The end result is too often a power struggle adults feel they can’t walk away from…and a young person willing to giving up everything to maintain their dignity (which they feel is constantly being stripped away).

Getting to know young people changes how they act.  

Young people, like most of us, are looking for a place to connect and to be a part of.   When they feel personally connected, most young people (like adults) modify their behavior to fit in.  Welcoming environments for youth are critical.

What’s the big deal with kicking kids out of the library?

The Children’s Defense Fund reports that African American boys have a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison….a Latino boy has a 1 in 6 chance.   Many of our urban youth who most need the library are poor and non-white.   The question of what should we do when young people misbehave is important.   Ignoring or escalating the issue can easily facilitate the young person’s passage into that pipeline to prison.  If we instead take the position that misbehavior is an opportunity to help young people learn how to succeed…we have the opportunity to redirect that pipeline to college rather than prison.   Deborah Prothrow-Stith, one of the nation’s premier experts on preventing youth violence, tells the story of a father lamenting over the fatal shooting of his child by another group of youth. His regret wasn’t for what he had done or not done for his child…his regret was that he hadn’t done nearly enough to help those other people’s kids.