Youthful Decisions--A Paragraph a Day

Working with young people, I'm constantly faced with certain frustrations.  If I could teach them anything that I think might help them to lead happy and fulfilling lives, high on my list would be the art of decision-making.  What I see in the kids of today is often an inability to make decisions that will prove to be helpful to them, or positive for them.  Of course, there have been kids making bad decisions for all of history--they're still young and they usually don't have the experience behind them that would help them to understand how to weigh their options before making important decisions.  In fact, they often don't have the experience necessary to even understand or recognize their options.  If they've had good teachers in their lives, they're usually a bit better prepared for decision-making, but it seems that these days they have less positive adult input in their lives than they used to.  This lack of connection with older people who could be passing on their knowledge and wisdom is a great detriment to the young people, who tend to get most of their "learning" from screens these days.  Unfortunately, the screens can't help them when some sort of dilemma arises, and the lack of previous learning from the people who used to be role models often keeps them from making decisions that are positive and helpful to them in their lives.  I do my best at school to teach them how to look at things in ways that will help them to make good decisions, but the deck seems to be stacked against them in many ways.  So if you see any young people who seem to be making really bad decisions, don't be too upset with them.  Rather, it may do them--and you--a great deal of good to try to help them to understand the importance of decision-making, and help them to develop a process of their own to come to decisions that will help them to build their lives rather than sabotage them.