This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a graduation party for a young family member.\u00a0 As I left the event, I couldn’t help but reflect on the many adults in this teenager’s life who had impacted his first 18 years. Party guests included not only family members, but also neighbors, his boss, friends, parents of friends, and even the owner of a local business the young man frequently purchased supplies from.<\/p>\n
Attending this party also made me think back to some of the key adults in my life when I was 18 years old.\u00a0 Memories flooded back of my music teachers, a club sponsor, and a well-respected gentleman in the cattle industry who always seemed to have time to talk with me. I imagine you can remember some adults who had a big impact on your own life, too.<\/p>\n
Over the past forty years, researchers have learned that nothing<\/em> has more impact on the life of a child than positive relationships. While young people will experience hardship, relationships with caring adults can help to mitigate challenges that occur. Fortunately, we are developing a better understanding about the specific actions in these relationships that make them so effective. The Search Institute <\/a>has identified five key ways adults can engage with young people to promote their development.\u00a0 These include expressing care, challenging growth, providing support, sharing power, <\/em>and expanding possibilities.<\/em>\u00a0 Over the next several weeks, I will unpack each of these actions and provide some practical strategies that you can use.<\/p>\n In the meantime, think about the people around you.\u00a0 Do you know a young person who could benefit from having another positive adult in their life? Today I challenge you; will you commit to being that caring adult?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a graduation party for a young family member.\u00a0 As I left the event, I couldn’t help but reflect on the many adults in this teenager’s life who had impacted his first 18 years. Party guests included not only family members, but also neighbors, his boss, friends, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":90,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-youth-development","tag-extendmu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafnrfaculty.missouri.edu\/mott\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}