WLS Teens

Thoughts on Teens, Poverty, and Making Choices

I went to a terrific workshop on Friday, Bridges Out of Poverty, sponsored by Outreach Services. While focusing on issues surrounding intergenerational poverty, it was interesting to note similarities between those in intergenerational poverty and teens as a group. The importance of relationships to working with teens was echoed in its critical importance to working with those in poverty. The tribal nature of adolescents is all about relationships and it is partly through relationships with those who can see beyond tribal rules or group pressure that adolescents are empowered to grow as individuals.

While many teen services librarians intuitively know this and also understand the importance of teen participation in shaping library services, it was affirming to see it laid out so clearly and backed up by research (even though this research was not specific to either teens or to libraries—inferences could be made). While coming from a different perspective, this research dovetails nicely with and supports key aspects of the research on adolescent development from the Search Institute that is the basis of YALSA’s Everyone Serves Teens training.

Impulsivity and an underdeveloped sense of cause & effect and choice & consequence were pointed out as a group characteristic of those in intergenerational poverty. Sound familiar? Even for teens who are high achievers, these can still be developmental markers.

Nurturing “future stories” was suggested as a tool for helping individuals be better able to make deliberate choices. “Future stories” are narratives that help individuals think about choice and consequence—to move from emotion-driven to deliberative decision-making (rather than choice by default). The rubric was presented that “if individuals depend upon random episodic story structure for memory pattern…there is no ability to plan…or predict. If you can’t plan or predict, you can’t identify cause and effect. If you can’t identify cause and effect, you can’t identify consequences.”  Heightened emotion can also short circuit a teen's ability to think about the future, to plan, predict or think about consequences.

How is this for the intersection of story and behavior, literature & relationships? Stories and storytelling can be employed to empower teens in shaping their own narratives—the narratives of their lives. They don’t have to be long stories. It can be a simple story that says, “if you choose to behave in one way, this will happen—but if you choose to behave that way, something else will happen.” Stories like this help to clarify and make choices concrete. Learning to make choices is a primary task of adolescence and helping teens to make "informed" choices is a fundamental aspect of teen services.

Novels and films can help a teen step back from his/her own life and see it from a distance in the actions of a fictional character. It is easier to see the unspoken rules of a group or peer pressures or family expectations when you are watching (or reading) someone else’s story. Book discussion or the opportunity to talk about the book/film enhances a teen’s ability to articulate issues and grapple with them. 

Thinking about teens from the perspective of intergenerational poverty offers some new insights and approaches to working not only with teens at risk, but with all teens.  And, the power and importance of stories in the lives of teens becomes even more compelling.
Judith Rovenger, WLS

Fear, Fiction & Teens

I just came from an amazing symposium, jointly sponsored by the Yale University Child Study Center and the Anna Freud Center, entitled “Fear and Fiction: The Power of Children’s Books and the Inner Life of The Child.” Presentations by children’s and teen authors who have written books dealing with this theme were interspersed with analyses of their books by psychiatrists and therapists. It was a wonderful affirmation of why literature matters and how literature works.

For teens in particular, the intimate voice of an author who seems to be writing just for you and who seems to know your darkest fears—can provide a feeling of companionship as well as direction on the lonely voyage to adulthood.

Arietta Slade, Professor of Clinical & Developmental Psychology, City University of New York, reminded us that “the beauty of literature is that we discover pieces of ourselves by loosing ourselves in the stories of others.” And Chris Crutcher added, that “it doesn’t matter where the stories come from (online, print, film), but where the big questions come from – where did I come from? Where am I going?”  "Fearlessness," pointed out Jacqueline Woodson, "is freedom."

Karen Gilmore, Associate Director, Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, explained some of the development tasks of adolescence, emphasizing individuation and separation from parents. The journey to adulthood can be scary and it can be lonely. Books, stories, literature, she pointed out, can help teens feel less alone.

It was inspiring to see how inspired the psychiatrists were by the authors and their books and the eagerness of the therapists to incorporate literature into the lives of teens. 

If I can decipher my notes, I’ll share quotes and insights from Gregory Maguire, who gave a personal, poetic and very wise keynote, and from Lois Lowry, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Jacqueline Woodson, and Chris Crutcher —who were all wonderful—among others like Neil Gaiman and David Almond, who sent papers.

Judith Rovenger, WLS

Responsibility

I've been thinking a lot about some of the conversation we had last week at the teen services meeting about the developmental assets and teen responsibility.  As I thought about the discussion I began to worry that we were too negative about teens and their sense of responsibility. My friend Anthony would say that we were using a deficit model - all the things teens don't do and don't have - as opposed to an asset model.

So, I wanted to post something about the positive aspects of teen responsibility and how librarians can support teen responsibility building.

• Giving teens library cards helps support their sense of responsibility and their knowing that they are responsible for that card.  Teens and adults might use the card inappropriately. Teens and adults might lose their cards.  But, our job is to provide the card and to give teens the chance to use it responsibly.
• Giving teens access to social networking tools and using those tools as a part of library programs and services. One of the ways we can help teens be safe and responsible users of these tools is by giving them opportunities to use them in safe and responsible ways. Saying, "No you can't use the tools" doesn't help teens to learn and demonstrate responsible behavior.
• Giving teens the chance to work on project based activities for/with the library. What better way to gain skills related to responsibility when you work on a project that is real and meaningful?

Teens are responsible if we give them the chance!

Posted by Linda W. Braun

Serving Teens - Assets, Behavior, Spaces

At today's WLS Teen Services meeting we had a good discussion about the ways in which libraries support healthy teen development via the programs, services, and spaces they provide.  We looked at the Developmental Assets - created by the Search Institute - and talked about exactly what libraries do for teens that help support the assets. The list created by the group is available here.

I stressed a few things about the assets over and over again. First, the assets provide teen librarians with a framework for the services they provide and they also provide language for articulating the importance of what teen librarians try to accomplish with and for teens in libraries.  As I mentioned in the meeting, librarians serving teens can include the developmental assets as reasons for why they  create specific programs, services, and collections. For example, one can look at the assets and find that providing a separate space for teens meets many of the items on the list - support, boundaries and expectations, social competencies, and more. I have had great success selling programs and services to administrators by putting them within the assets framework.

At the meeting I also distributed a handout that provides some guidelines for handling problems in teen_behavior. The sheet can be effectively used with all staff members as a jumping off point for talking about teen behaviors and as a way to help staff understand how to successfully work with teens.

Another handout included questions to ask when analyzing the library's teen space. These questions serve as a launching point for helping librarians determine what they are already doing successfully with teen space and how they might make changes and improvements.