The Importance of Family in Promoting Positive Youth Development

The Role of the Family

The role of families in regard to their children’s development is much more than functionary—providing shelter, food, clothing, and transportation. In fact, research has shown that the most important influence in adolescents’ lives is their parents (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington & Bornstein, 2000; Hutchinson & Baldwin, 2005). The categorization of 40 Developmental Assets from the research done at the Search Institute, indicate that external assets (support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, and constructive use of time) are highly dependent on family involvement:

Support: Family life provides high levels of love and support and young person and his or her parent(s) communicate positively, and young person is willing to seek advice and counsel from parents. Parent(s) are actively involved in helping young person succeed in school.

Empowerment: Young person feels safe at home, at school, and in the neighborhood.

Boundaries and expectations: Family has clear rules and consequences and monitors the young person’s whereabouts. Parent(s) and teachers encourage the young person to do well. There are high expectations from both parent(s) and teachers to do wel(Search Institute, 1997; Witt & Caldwell, 2005, p. 10).

The Search Institute’s asset-driven approach towards positive youth development is based on the evidence that if a young person acquires a high percentage of those assets, he/she will have a better opportunity to achieve well-being:

For example, 49% of young people who indicate they have 0 to 10 of the 40 assets are likely to engage in problem alcohol use as opposed to only 3% of young people with 31to 40 assets. The same relationship holds true for being involved in violence, illicit drug use, and sexual activity…Similar percentages are found for other positive or thriving behavior attitudes such as exhibiting leadership, maintaining good health, and valuing diversity (Witt & Caldwell, 2005, p. 9).

Thus, the developmental asset model is helpful in monitoring positive youth development, especially when considering how the role of family plays such an influential part in the lives of adolescents.

It is research like the above-mentioned that suggests families should be included in the context of solution-based programs for youth. An example of utilizing the influential strengths of families is found within the multiple family group intervention approach. Within this approach or model, wisdom is diversified among group members (group leader, parent(s), and youth) in order to provide viable solutions for at-risk youth:

In multiple family group intervention, the attempt is made to acknowledge the private world of the individual, which may include suffering, alienation, and oppression, while simultaneously making an effort to help repair the fragmentation in the individual’s own community. Concurrently, each participant is viewed as a resource (Quinn, 2004, p. 8).

Viewing the family as a prominent resource, a youth development professional has a kaleidoscope of experiences and innate wisdom at his fingertips. Although family members may have ill-conceived or ill-advised notions of what constitutes productive parenting skills, they are more likely to listen and acknowledge appropriate responses if they are given voice within group scenarios.

A primary feature of a multiple family group intervention is the transformative process of viewing the “other” (Quinn, 2004, p. 189). For example, parent(s) are given the opportunity to view their children in a different light. Through a family solutions program, at-risk youth that have been perceived as “reckless,” “no-good,” “lazy,” or “dangerous” are empowered to shed those perceptions and adopt new ones through a renewed sense of narrative. The following Narrative Pedagogies Project demonstrates this type of youth empowerment through the writing and telling of their stories.

Narrative Pedagogies Project

The NPP (Narrative Pedagogies Project) is a religious education program for youth. It originated at Claremont Theological Seminary under the direction of professor Frank Rogers, Jr. Dr. Rogers’ initial aim in the program was to counter the prevailing consumer-driven mindset within youth culture. Because he believed youth were vulnerable to marketing ploys which mirrored desired cultural identities (refer to PBS’s Frontline Merchants of Cool for more information on youth consumer culture), Dr. Roger’s felt this current identity formation truncated their truer sense of themselves; and he advocated for the empowerment found within the arts (storytelling, poetry, drama, and the fine arts) in order to create meaning-making in their lives:

Young people, Rogers relates, internalize the narratives that are shaped by the people in power—in this case, by the folks who generate the commercials on TV. ‘Unfortunately,’ he goes on, ‘young people are not nurtured to be critically reflective, nor are they encouraged to question whether their own worth is tied to the products that they desire and acquire (Schier, 2009, p. 2).

The narrative design that Dr. Rogers utilizes has as much to do with the basic tenet of narrative theology as it does with youth development—having an appreciation of Life Story. A life story deals with the influential factors that create one’s narrative, which shapes discernment for moral action (Stone, 1995). In other words, the idea behind creating or rewriting one’s narrative is reflecting on the external factors (institutions, parents, other adults, peers, etc.) that become the backdrop of one’s story, and with this story one becomes empowered by this new, transcendent truth that compels a person to live and thrive within a newly-formed personhood. And it takes more than one person to do the work of narrative pedagogy.

Again, the family unit, an adolescent’s most influential source, can set the stage for positive youth development if they, too, are discerning a young person’s image through positive and productive means.