What does it mean to "give up?"

The book I am reviewing tonight is called raise them up: the real deal on reaching the unreachable kids by Kareem Moody. This is a very short book, easy to read and I read it in a couple of hours. I didn't get it off my shelf; my program director, Heather, ordered some books from Amazon and they came to the office addressed to New Hope so I opened them. The author has no special credentials other than he has worked with difficult kids for a long time and was one when he was growing up.

Mr. Moody first talks about the 40 assets that the Search Institute has identified that are building blocks of healthy development that help young people grow up healthy, caring and responsible. I considered listing all 40 assets here but it might resemble too closely Bill's telephone book list. So if you want to know what they are you can go to http://oglecenter.ius.edu/pdf/40DevelopmentalAssets.pdf .

Though I think there is merit to these assets, experts tell us that we can't remember more than seven things at one time. That is why phone numbers are seven digits. But now we don't even have to remember seven digits as long as the number is in our cell phone and we don't lose it or as I have done twice now, soak it in water. The first time I soaked my phone in water was when it fell into the toilet. The second time was when we were making a vampire movie with the kids at camp and I was being drug into the lake by a vampire or maybe I was going into the lake to save someone who turned out to be a vampire. Anyway my phone was in my pocket. But I am digressing. I don’t like the assets because I can’t remember them.

I like the five promises that all children need to become successful adults as determined by America’s Promise Alliance because I can remember them: Positive adults, effective education, healthy development, safe places with constructive use of time and an opportunity make a difference by helping others. And it seems to me that you could place each of the 40 assets into one of the five promises. When I discovered the five promises a few years back, it really made a difference. I finally have a focus. I am finally able to say what we are about. Each program we offer, each activity a child is involved in, provides at least three of the five promises children need to become successful adults.

For example, the kids in our service club fed homeless people at a soup kitchen on Friday. There were positive adults who assisted them and made sure they were safe; they were definitely receiving an effective education; and they were making a difference by helping others. Five promises are easier to remember than 40 assets but I’ll look over the list from time to time and see what our kids need that we might be able to help with.

Though this blog is getting kind of long (I could break it into two blogs thus improving my standing in the competition) but I think I’ll just make the other point from this book that I want to make. Mr. Moody says that you should never give up on a child. This is something we continue to struggle with at camp. There are some who think we should never send a child home no matter what they do. Others of us feel like if we don’t send the most difficult children home, then the “easy” children don’t get the attention they deserve. I am on the fence. I understand both arguments. The most difficult children fail at everything and they expect to fail when they come to camp. If we can keep them all week, they have a needed success in their life. But it does take a lot of time and energy to keep these children at camp and perhaps 75 percent of our time is spent on 10 percent of the children. Is that fair to the rest of them? Do they think they have to act up to get our attention?

I think I might be missing the point. Sending a child home from camp does not necessarily equate to giving up on them. Summer camp may just not be the place for them to be or perhaps the time is just not right. Two years ago I had to send a girl home for threatening another girl. Last summer I met with her before camp and laid out the conditions for her coming back. Of course, I tried to listen and ask her what she thought the problem was. But she did come back to camp and she made it through the week. Her behavior was much improved from the year before.

I was talking to a great-grandmother yesterday whose great grandson was sent home last summer and she was telling me he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to come to camp this summer. My response, “of course he can come back.” Perhaps ignoring his behavior and letting him stay at camp would have been giving up on him. Perhaps expecting and requiring decent behavior is how we don’t give up on him. I have to say that some of my best conversations with the children are on the way home when they get my full attention, and they know that I still care.