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The Emmanuel Research Review is a publication of the Emmanuel Gospel Center. The Review features articles, papers, resources, and information that we believe are helpful and relevant to urban pastors, leaders and community members in their efforts to serve their communities effectively.
Introduction
by Brian Corcoran
Managing Editor
The wave of recent violence in the lives of youth across our nation and in our local communities challenges us to seek understanding, gather hope and act in the power and love of Jesus to turn the tide and heal the trauma. As I write this, the horrific incident at Virginia Tech is still raw in the hearts and minds of most Americans. This issue of the Emmanuel Research Review will help us to “think Christianly” about fringe kids and violence, and what Jesus would have us to do.
In the two articles that follow: A New Emerging Delinquent? and Reaching Fringe Kids, Dr. Scott J. Larson challenges us to look between and beyond the common categories of youth ministry in order that no youth fall through the cracks or over the edges. In the process, we begin to see our youth from Jesus’ perspective and minister from his heart to those being drawn into the stream of violence and the downward spiral of the challenges they are facing.
Resources and Links: In addition to Scott’s articles we have included national and local statistics, risk factors, protective factors, responses, preventative measures and resources that both outline the significance and contours of youth violence today and begin to identify practical steps to reduce youth violence tomorrow. These are available on a separate webpage.
About Scott Larson: Dr. Larson is president and co-founder of Straight Ahead Ministries, a national organization focused on reaching out to juvenile offenders in more than 400 juvenile detention centers in 14 states and a myriad of aftercare programs when youth return home.
If you enjoy what you read here, there is more available from Scott Larson. These two articles can be found on his website and were used by permission. There are more articles posted there. Scott has authored or co-authored eight books: one for parents of a rebellious teen, four for youth workers, one for social workers and teachers, and two for teens. He has traveled extensively as a speaker to youth, parents, teachers, social workers and youth workers since 1983. His doctoral dissertation was on the spiritual development of at-risk youth.
Scott and his wife Hanne reside in Northborough, Massachusetts with their two children, Sarah and David.
A production note: We will soon be making a change in the way we get the email version of this journal to you. In a few weeks, we will be working with a different email subscription service than the one we have used since our inception, back in March, 2004. If for some reason we miss you in the change, please contact us again so we can keep the Review coming to you.
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Brian Corcoran
Managing Editor
by Dr. Scott J. Larson
When I began in
Christian youth work in the early 1980s, we were taught that students fell into
three basic categories. The first category contained the popular kids: athletes,
cheerleaders, homecoming kings and queens. These were considered the leaders of
their schools. The second held the masses. Not particularly good kids, not
particularly bad. Just average. I was a part of that group. The third category
was comprised of the druggies, hoodlums and general troublemakers.
Categories of Teens
Category 1: Popular
kids
Category 2: Average kids
Category 3: At-risk kids
“If you want to establish a solid high school ministry,” we were told, “go after kids in the first category. If you can get the varsity quarterback and head cheerleader, kids in both categories one and two will follow.” Nothing was ever said about the third category, confirming our assumption that you didn’t particularly want these kids in your youth group anyway.
Certainly, children in the more elite upper class deserve the attention of youth workers as much as anyone else. And perhaps their seeming perfection is a burden much stronger than many realize. Judy, a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl laments that her physical attractiveness has left her wondering if boys even, “know who she really is.”
Likewise, the quarterback on the football team whose demanding father understands nothing short of perfection, feels as much like a failure as anyone else. The advanced-placement calculus student hefts the millstone of his gift in late-night study sessions, preparing once more to “prove” his worth through intellectual excellence. There are tremendous needs in every category of teens, but to target only the best and brightest is wrong.
Then there is the third category of at risk kids. Our organization, like many others, concentrates primarily on them. While they have a myriad of needs, many of these young people have far more adults interacting with them than the kids in the first two categories. Special education teachers, counselors, group care workers, and a host of others focus attention solely on this group.
Surprising to some, many in this third group are actually very effective leaders, albeit negative ones. A large percentage represent subcultures like that of the hip-hop culture, which are attracting more and more mainstream kids. In some ways, these kids are leading the youth culture at large.
Yet there is a new, quiet, emerging type of troubled teen who sits in the middle. He or she has not yet been diagnosed as at risk, and thus not exposed to the services directed toward many of the more obvious rebels. They are not part of the two leadership groups on either side of them, but are more or less drifting with no clear sense of purpose or direction. Though I have worked with at-risk teens intensely for nearly two decades, almost none of what we know about traditional troubled teens fits the profile of these kids.
This child often seethes inwardly and undetected until erupting more violently than those from whom we might expect it. This is the youngster who lives down the street, who sits quietly alone in the cafeteria. But tragically, next to nothing is being to done to actively pursue and reach him or her. On school campuses, such kids are disconnected and alienated from the mainstream of adolescent youth culture.
How do we best reach out to such kids? First we need to better understand them. It seems that there are two major types of troubled youth today. There is the traditional at-risk youth—those usually residing in the third category of young people—whose destructive behavior can usually be spotted early on. Then there is this emerging troubled teen whose problems often remain masked until later in adolescence. This young person most often fits in this second category of kids we have been discussing.
Traditional At-Risk Kids
Adolescent psychologist James Garbarino points out how there are not one or two primary risk factors that influence a young person toward violence. Rather, there are eight or nine different risk factors, each carrying about the same degree of influence. It is the accumulation of these—actually four or more—that tend to push young people over the edge.
The vast majority of traditional at-risk youth possess risk factors like: coming from a family with a history of criminal violence, being a victim of abuse or neglect, living in violent neighborhoods, and abusing alcohol and drugs. In fact, a recent report released about juvenile offenders in our home state of Massachusetts revealed that 44 percent of them had been stabbed or shot, and 35 percent had actually personally witnessed another person being killed.
It is not surprising that that up to 40 percent of these teens actually met the diagnostic criteria for post traumatic stress disorder! These children have experienced more trauma by age sixteen than most of us will encounter in an entire lifetime.
Fifteen-year-old José expressed this painful reality in the following note he handed one of our detention Bible study leaders recently:
Please pray for my friend Jared. He hung himself Sunday. I pray that he made it to heaven. Please pray my dad comes home from jail in 30 days and my HIV test comes back with what God wanted it to be.
The remedy for kids like José is intense adult intervention. Larry Brendtro and I wrote extensively about how to reach such youth in a book entitled, Reclaiming our Prodigal Sons and Daughters (National Educational Service, 2000).
Traditional at-risk kids don’t tend to assimilate well into traditional youth programs. One reason is that they have had far more life experience than most youth group kids. Obviously, witnessing a homicide first hand places one in an entirely different category of life experience than the average teen. This doesn’t mean they are any more mature, but trying to integrate them with kids whose biggest problem may be not having a date for the prom is a bit of a mismatch.
A second reason that traditional youth groups sometimes don’t work well for these kids is that the guys pose an immediate threat to the boys in the youth group. Suddenly they now are in competition with them for the youth group girls. And youth group girls tend to have a fascination with boys who are on the edge.
For these reasons most traditional at-risk kids tend to fit much better with the college age groups—or better yet with one-to-one adult relationships. Here they are not a threat to their peers, they have more in common when it comes to life experiences, and there are not as many potentially damaging boy-girl relationships to possibly develop.
A New Category of At-Risk Teens
As we mentioned earlier, there is a new emerging category of at-risk teen today. Such kids include those who have committed some of the heinous school crimes recently. Unlike many traditional at-risk youth, their problems may not even surface until they are well into their teenage years. Perhaps that is largely because many of them come from intact families, live in healthier neighborhoods, and have fared reasonably well in school. Such supports tend to hold kids together longer, who might otherwise drift toward the fringe.
But, researchers have confirmed that two of the highest risk factors contributing to violent behavior are simply being thirteen- to fifteen-years-old, and being male. Thus, when an adolescent boy experiences extreme peer rejection, a common theme present in every recent incident of homicidal school violence, one can begin to envision how some kids may go off the deep end.
One cannot underestimate the power of peer relationships when it comes to teenagers. Feeling rejected by peers is a curse almost unequaled in the mind of a young person, as expressed by one eighth-grader, “When you’re at this stage, it’s all about fitting in. And when you don’t, you’re a social outcast and a target.”
While caring adults are important for these kids, positive peers are equally critical. They desperately long for and need authentic and embracing peer relationships, making them a prime candidate for any solid youth group program. In fact, such a connection can mean the difference between life and death for them, if not literally, at least emotionally.
We have our work cut out for us if we are to reach this young person, for the average teen is not so open to reaching out. Research confirms that half of today’s students acknowledge that befriending a scapegoat would likely result in reducing their own social standing among peers, not to mention the potential risk of being picked on themselves. Amy, a high school junior for example, was petrified about the thought of befriending some of the “geeks and freaks” in her school. Her reasoning? “I’ve worked for three years to break into one of the popular groups in my school. Hanging out with kids like that would undo everything!”
Yet there are other teens who see it much more clearly, and are willing to reach out at whatever the cost. We need to hear the call of one seventeen-year-old girl who so eloquently expressed it in a recent “Letter to the Editor” of Newsweek Magazine, and challenge the teens in our schools to take a similar view:
Think about the average American high school. Think about the groups. The cliques. Now think about the students who are not in a group, not in a clique. The outsiders, the freaks, the weirdoes, the geeks. To all my fellow students who may be reading this: you could prevent another tragedy from happening in your own seemingly safe school. Say hello to the guy who sits alone in chemistry and never speaks. Invite someone who always sits by herself at lunch to sit with you. Think about what you are doing when you tease, laugh at, or exclude someone from something just because he doesn’t fit in. This may not solve the problem; some people are just not mentally stable. But if the youth in our schools make an effort to stop ostracizing such students, schools might become safer places. Maybe even happier, too.
Sources:
1. James Garbarino, Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 10.
2. From a lecture by James Garbarino in Worcester, MA at a symposium on November 4, 1999 entitled “Our Lost Boys: Challenging the Culture of Violence,” and from his book, Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 76.
3. Oral interview with Suzanne Jazzman, Clinical Director for the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services on November 5, 1999.
4. Research conducted by Patrick Tolan and cited by James Garbarino in Worcester, MA at a symposium on November 4, 1999 entitled “Our Lost Boys: Challenging the Culture of Violence.”
5. Steven S. Hall, “The Bully in the Mirror,” The New York Times Magazine, August 22, 1999, 34.
6. John H. Hoover and Ronald Oliver, The Bullying Prevention Handbook: A Guide for Principals, Teachers, and Counselors, (Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service, 1996), 15.
7. Megan Walters, Mexico City, Mexico, "Letter to the Editor", Newsweek, May 24, 1999, 20.
This article is published on the Straight Ahead Ministries website, copyright Straight Ahead Ministries, Dr. Scott J. Larson, used by permission.
Reaching Fringe Kids
by Dr. Scott J. Larson
Please pray for my friend Jared. He hung himself Sunday. I pray that he made it to heaven. Please pray my dad comes home from jail in 30 days and my HIV test comes back with what God wanted it to be.
Fifteen-year-old José handed this note to one of our leaders after a recent detention center Bible study. He certainly fits the description of a fringe kid, as defined by Webster: “That which is marginal, additional, or secondary to the mainstream.”
But so does suburban, church-attending, Jill, who pulled me aside at a youth conference to say, “I think about suicide a lot these days. But my biggest fear is that if I did it, no one would miss me after I was gone.” When I asked if she could talk to her parents about her feelings she said, “They’ve got too many problems of their own to have time to listen to mine.”
An increasing number of teens from every walk of life feel like they’re on the fringe. In fact, a recent government study concluded that one in every four American teens are now at risk of failing to achieve productive adult lives!1
Why do so many of our young people feel so out of the mainstream—so disconnected from positive adults? Historically, the lives of children and adults were closely intertwined, but that is certainly no longer the case. In fact, ours may be the first culture in history where grown-ups and kids try hard to avoid one another. According to youth researcher, Peter Benson, 80 percent of adults avert their eyes when meeting a youth of middle school age.
While many youth project that they’re only interested in their friends and want nothing to do with adults, the evidence suggests the contrary. One major study revealed that while teens do go to each other first for advice, they tend not to trust the advice they receive. The youth surveyed said, overwhelming, that they would prefer to go to their parents or other adults first, but they don’t feel they have the relationship with them to talk openly about their problems.2
Kids who are overwhelmed with life but have no one to talk with other than peers are in a dangerous predicament. I wonder how many of the school killings of the past three years might have been averted had there been an adult who could help give perspective to a hurting youngster who had been ostracized and bullied by peers to the point where he just couldn’t take any more.
How do we build meaningful relationships with such kids? Perhaps the most relevant verse for effective ministry to fringe kids today was penned by the Apostle Paul. “Though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you did not have many fathers. But I became your father in gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:15). Just as the Corinthians had a bigger need for a father or mother, than just another instructor, so do troubled kids today.
Certainly this type of ministry is not very flashy. Nor is it geared toward big numbers. It’s anything but easy. But it does work. It doesn’t mean that you, as a youth leader, needs to re-parent every fringe kid you encounter, but it may mean recruiting many more caring adults who can fill the needs of hurting kids in your community. Admittedly, that’s easier said than done.
Jim had agreed to mentor fifteen-year-old Alex. This was his first experience at working with a fringe kid, but it was nothing like he had envisioned. Every time he went to Alex’s house to pick him up as agreed, Alex wasn’t home. This happened seven times in a row! The next time Jim was driving to Alex’s, he already had decided this was the last chance he was giving the relationship. It seemed more than obvious that Alex just wasn’t interested. After ringing the doorbell several times, Jim walked back to his car, knowing he would not come back here again.
Just as he was about to drive away, Alex yelled out a bedroom window, “Wait!” and came running out to the car. That day, the two of them began a friendship that would last several years. Jim later learned that Alex had been watching him from his window each time he came. He was testing Jim’s commitment before he was going to invest.
Unfortunately when it comes to dealing with fringe kids, Jim’s experience is more the norm than the exception. That’s why we tell all of our mentors, “You have to expect to phone a kid ten times in order to reach him once. Don’t view it as wasted time. For every time you make a commitment to a kid and then keep it, even when they break theirs, you make major strides toward rebuilding her capacity to trust.” Why? Because the role we play as an adult is representative of all the other adults who may have dropped the ball with them over the years.
My wife, Hanne, experienced this with girls like Tina who she ministered to in Minneapolis before we were married. “Let me out of the car. I’m walking home! I hate you. I hate all of you, and I never want to see you again!” As Tina slammed the car door, she added, “I hope you die!”
Hanne had been elated about what God had done in Tina’s life all week during the canoeing trip. It was the first time real progress could be seen, as she was finally beginning to open up to the youth leaders who had been investing in her for so long. Yet now she distancing herself more than ever.
Afraid of the decisions she was making for God, and the relationships she was forming with caring adults, Tina was attempting to squash those relationships before they could hurt her, something she had grown all too accustomed to. Kids like this have a not-so-subtle way of sabotaging every significant relationship they enter. And often it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads them to conclude, “See, I knew you’d just leave me anyway.”
But over time, change begins to happen as these kids experience a person who knows them at their worst, yet still loves them. Although Hanne hasn’t lived in Minnesota for many years, she still receives calls and letters from many of those girls whose lives have forever been affected by her love and acceptance.
Tina was one of those who called more recently. “I just wanted you to know how often I think about you, Hanne. I have three kids of my own now. I want to raise them the way God wants me to, but most of the time I feel at a loss when it comes to knowing what he would want me to do. That’s when I think of you. I ask myself, ‘What would Hanne do?’ and then I know that’s probably what God would want.’”
“If I started reaching out to the fringe kids and bringing them into my church I’d lose my job!” complains one youth pastor. But if we call ourselves Christian, do we really have an option? Jesus always actively sought out at least five distinct types of people: the orphan, the widow, the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned. In short, he sought out the outcasts—those who were on the fringe. And to the degree your program does the same, you can be sure of one thing: Your heart is beating in sync with his.
Footnotes:
1 National Research Council, Panel on High-Risk Youth, Losing Generations, (National Academy Press, 1995), p. 5.
2 “National Early Teen Survey” conducted in 1998 by KidsPeace, Inc. of Orefield, PA.
This article is published on the Straight Ahead Ministries website, copyright Straight Ahead Ministries, Dr. Scott J. Larson, used by permission.
Resources and Links
Issue 26 Resources and Links (click here)
In addition to Scott’s articles we have included national and local statistics, risk factors, protective factors, responses, preventative measures and resources that both outline the significance and contours of youth violence today and begin to identify practical steps to reduce youth violence tomorrow. These are available on a separate webpage.
Emmanuel Research Review, copyright © 2007, Emmanuel Gospel Center. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint any or all of this newsletter, contact mailto:rmitchell@egc.org by email or write:Emmanuel Gospel Center
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PO Box 180245
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Rudy Mitchell, Senior Researcher, 617.262.4567 x133
Brian Corcoran, Managing Editor, 617.262.4567 x217
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