Solutions to Grooming
Teens for Adulthood

Reasoning and Problem Solving CST 1
November 30, 2009

To solve a problem one must often dive beneath the surface of the reflected obvious to reveal the rest of the issue hidden in the depths below. In Task one for this course the question of what is the best way to prepare teen’s for a successful adulthood has been addressed through several viewpoints and approaches. Just as there are multiple approaches in rearing children, there does not appear to be a single solution to the problem. Upon investigation it quickly becomes apparent that various groups can look at the same issue and will ultimately form different solutions that reflect their own skew on the problem. A closer look at example solution’s utilizing life skills through school settings, community resources, and Socratic home environments will demonstrate this concept.

As an educator I believe that preparation is gleaned through understanding and understanding is gleaned from education. My solution would involve taking an active approach in educating the future educator by preparing the young to facilitate life skills for themselves and their own children one day. Equipping children with life applications of what they potentially will face as an adult is much like training a soldier for battle. Our county does not expect our military personnel to enlist and not receive training for what they will expect to encounter. Our children should not be expected to receive any less training for the battles they will face as well. This could be delivered through the current school system which is established and widely accepted as the standard for receiving a core education. This mode of delivery would also fit snugly into most families’ normal routine and would allow all children equal access to the training. A general guideline of a child’s basic needs and life skills lesson plans would be developed by a governed committee of experts. This material would be introduced in an initial training module by fourth or fifth grade. Often called the Tween years, the pre teen age child is primed for new information as they increasingly question their norm. This would begin to equip the child before entering middle school and would build concepts with each additional year through twelfth grade. Currently elective classes such as Home and Consumer Science, Health, Shop, and Vocational Agriculture target specific areas of skills that are used in adulthood. Some schools offer development courses that offer hands on experience of adult life responsibilities through parenting an electronic baby. All of the needs of the baby have to be met by the student as though it was a living child (“Hillcrest high school”. (n.d.). 2008). Life skill development courses should not be optional as they are as critical to the core education of a child as are reading and mathematics. Most parents have the desire for their children to become well equipped for adulthood. Often both duel and single parent households must spend a great amount of time on matters of provision and have little time to spend focusing on teaching such skills themselves at home. As single parent families have increased nationwide over 27 percent of children 18 and under are being raised with just the attention of one parent or guardian (Collins, 2006, ¶ 1). Through this program parents and guardians would be included through extensive outreach projects such as assisting with forming a house hold budget, planning a weekly menu and shopping list, or outlining a basic plan for household vehicle maintenance. These young people would have the benefit of investigating real life issues through life skills courses allowing them to enter adult life with a broader experience base to grow from. This would increase their margin of success through educational preparation and in turn they would understand the impact and responsibilities of preparing their own children with the basics to succeed. Future generations would have the benefit of a structured preparation at school and at home.

A look at the standards of thinking that are entailed in this plan will reveal any areas that may need to have some additional clarity or changes made. It is important that I am precise on my purposed solutions position. The purpose of the plan is to propose a fair and realistic education method of grooming American teen’s to be prepared for adult life. I asked myself if this plan actually answered the given issue. The problem’s focus is on the word prepare which, as stated in task one, can also mean equipped. My solution’s focus is indeed on equipping teens for adulthood. To further clarify the application of the solution I felt that an example would help explain it another way. To check accuracy I thought again about the word, prepare. Is it really true that with the correct preparation teens would have success as adults? I concluded that it is certainly true that being equipped or prepared for whatever we are about to embark upon aids success. To ensure relevance I needed to be sure the idea is connected to the question. Throughout the formulation the assumption is made that parents do want their children to be prepared for adulthood. They expect that the school system will educated their children in all areas of basic need. Taxpayers expect that the bulk of their child’s primary education costs will be funded through the government. Parents or guardians spend much of their time on means of basic provision and have little time to teach their children at home. Families would trust and accept life skills training for their children if it were administered through the school system. All of these assumptions connected to the solution relate to the issue. The solution addresses these areas and incorporates them into the method of instruction of life skills. It is directly connected to the issue as a means of equipping teen’s for adulthood. This approach had to demonstrate depth and take into consideration the complexities of the problems itself. This was accomplished through addressing transportation, time limitations, staffing, training and budgeting issues. In the interest of the breadth of my reasoning, various points of view were taken into consideration in all three of the described solutions, however, they were not openly addressed enough in solution one. This solution does come from an educator stand point with attention to time and resource restraints on the parents and budgeting issues on the governing body involved. Additional attention to explaining these points would relay more breadth of thought to the solution itself. My preferred approach to solving the problem does fit together logically as it is task oriented to preparing teen’s, is practical in application through the school system, and is measurable through standardized testing. To assess the significance of the solution I needed to look at the most important information and concepts associated with the problem. I felt the most important information was that currently teens and their support guardians felt ill prepared to achieve in the adult world. The best solution would be one that addressed this need directly in the most practical way. I believe solution one is very significant in serving this need. Of major concern in planning the approach was just how to ensure it could be implemented fairly allowing access to American youth equally. By proposing that the program would be offered through the education system I believe this concern to be addressed fully. This solution implies that if followed the rising crop of life skilled trained students would become better prepared for adult challenges, would better understand the demands of day to day life, would achieve greater success, and would ultimately have the knowledge to aid in preparing their own children for adulthood.

An alterative solution generated from the Community Resources approach involves implementing governmentally funded skills classes in after school programs, community enrichment programs, and social programs. Skills training workshops would be introduced to after school program staff through the mandatory annual training hours. The staff would be trained and equipped with materials to teach weekly skills classes in age appropriate formats. The skills addressed would include life skill issues but expand to service opportunities with in the local community. In addition to after school programs, community enrichment programs work to facilitate hands on learning to the youth that can be utilized as adults. Programs such as these are directly focused on the children and would target after school hours that are established activities and available to all. This would allow the integration of skills training yet not require additional transportation or arrangements to be made by the parent. Social programs that offer vouchers and assistance to parents or guardians could require participation in similar workshops as a requirement of continued enrollment. “This would be similar to the requirements for the WICK program. I have to take a children’s nutrition class or write a food report from a USDA cookbook recipe to qualify for continued help with food stamps,” states a young mother, “I wouldn’t have picked to do this but I did ultimately get some good information from it”(C. West, personal communication, November 15, 2009).While this branch of the plan would not directly teach children it would serve to influence the child’s world by providing continuing education for the parent or guardian allowing them to facilitate learning opportunities for the child. Children mentored in these programs would receive some task oriented skills to face their lives as young adults with a stronger experience base. If the instruction continued through mentoring type organizations throughout their adult lives their own children could dually be prepared at home and through programs participation.

This second suggested solution purposes a government funded community resources option that would impart training in preparation for adulthood without impeding on the school day. Assuming that parents do want their children ready for successful adult lives, it is further assumed that enrichment through programs is a part of the preparation. This solution would have the advantage of appealing to working parents that want to be indirectly involved in training their child as their time and resources are limited. Life skill lessons through clubs and after school programs would fit into existing routines. Other advantages also include utilizing existing organizations, meeting places, and staff, keeping the overhead at a minimum. The advantage of incorporating the staff training into existing continuing education requirements for governmentally regulated programs would greatly speed the implementation process. Supporters of this solution would be biased to a co-op style of grooming for their children. They would naturally seek an outlet of learning for their children that allowed them as parents to have choices in placement, attendance and in scheduling. Supporting community organizations would be biased to programs that would support enrichment opportunities for youth. This implies that with continued core education during the school day and enrichment training opportunities in community programs the child would enter adult life with a holistic understanding of what is required to achieve a successful life. Additionally, increased public awareness for the need of life skills education would be a probable implication as support mounted for the necessary funding. The predicted positive outcome or consequence of this solution would be a population of children that would grow to be assisted in adult life by these life skill experiences. These young adults would have had hands on lessons to prepare them for finances, job issues, home issues, and relationships. Similarly, the adults that surround the program would be better prepared for issues themselves as they glean information from facilitating it. It is important to note there are some disadvantages or negative consequences to this approach. There would be some resulting overhead costs for clubs or facilities implementing this type of program that would not necessarily be fully recouped through governmental funding such as additional utilities, mileage to gather supplies, travel costs for training, and small miscellaneous lab supplies. The organizations while supplemented would have some portion of financial investment involved to function properly. Another disadvantage for this solution would be its limited outreach to only those children that were able to attend extra curricular programs or parents that were receiving governmental assistance. There are many children that would be missed due to the fact that they are not able for various reasons to attend these types of programs, or that their guardian did not qualify or participate in welfare programs.

A third solution offered from a Socratic home based approach involves implementing life lessons in an organized manner from home. This involves distributing the governmentally sponsored and funded training materials directly to the parent or guardian. The training material would include a chart detailing age appropriate milestones for basic life skill development as well as a video with example methods of home instruction in each category. This solution would be available to all homes and would exercise the right of choice in administration. The example Socratic methods could include suggestions of how to help teens understand the impact of replacement costs of household items. For example a teen that has reached driving age that habitually spins the tires on a vehicle would be required to save at least the price of one of the four replacement tires when the time comes to do so. Another example would be to save to replace clothing that has been discarded. Even in the event that the item(s) had been outgrown the fact that the child participated in some way to the replacement teaches a reality lesson. The key to this solution is teaching parents and guardians to insist on a reasonable basis that the child contributes to the household needs as well as their own. As they approach the age of employment working some type of job would be mandatory to experience handling money, a checking account, how resources are depleted easily, and managing scheduling multiple duties. Paramount to this process would be allowing the child to deal with the consequences of their decisions with in reason.

This third solution implies that training parents to allow their young to learn through experiences and their consequences within set family limitations would better equip the young adult in reality lessons. This assumes that parents would be willing implement this approach and that they would rather facilitate this instruction themselves. Parents are naturally biased to their own abilities in the rearing of their children. This solution would allow some direction within the homes while maintaining the parent as the facilitator. .This level of interaction could positively impact the adult-child relationship at home. “I love the opportunity to teach my child things they will need,” comments mother Kim Cantrell “sometimes though we get so busy as parents we miss some obvious areas and need some direction” (K. Cantrell, personal communication, November 15, 2009). The predicted outcome of this solution would be an improved population of young adults that have increased ownership in their surroundings. The Socratic approach would allow young people to become adults gradually through child experiences. This would help the young adult achieve success through their developed problem solving skills formulated from accountability lessons as a child.

With any problem or issue collective groups of people can support different solutions to the same problem. Each group views the issue from within their own special interest area and approach the task from their individual and collective frame of reference. Solution one is an approach by a group of educators, for example, and dwells largely on arming children with information and experiences with in a budget. Teachers understand the necessity of achieving true knowledge through the understanding hands on education imparts. They further relate to having to accomplish lessons for the largest group possible within a strict budget coupled with high accountability. The educators group would focus on the lessons, long term measurable goals, and budget concerns. Solution three in comparison would be an independent parental approach. This group would see the value of having the option deciding for them selves if they would introduce life skills to their children. They would also view family time at home as highly valuable and would administer the program from home rather than in school or in a community setting. Groups can come together with similar view points; however, they have individual perspectives as well. These differing points of view formed from previous experiences add detail to the solutions as they attempt to solve additional logistics they perceive to surround the core issue. One group won’t see the problem from the same angle another would, as in the educators verses the parents example. The educators would see the things that would help or interfere from the school setting and parents would see the things that would assist or interfere from the home setting. This is an important angle to keep in mind with any issue. What may be a simple problem for one person or group may have many “barbs” attached for another. Even the end result of determining success as an adult is a debatable topic. One group with a value related perspective, such as a faith based, may determine success as an adult far differently than a group of financial professionals or educators. Due to the complexities of the innumerable approach’s to raising a child, brought about by the vast differences in perspectives by those surrounding the issue, I believe there is no one solution that would fully ensure that every child would become a successful adult. In conclusion, again I find no one hundred percent answer to ensuring that all teens will be adequately prepared for adulthood and achieve success. Of the three solutions addressed, Educators Life Skills, Community Resources, and Socratic, I do maintain that the Educators Life Skills option best entails fair and practical measures to train children for their future. The Educators Life Skills solution could subtlety contain bits of each of these solutions yet be administered through an already existing method of training in public schools. This would most importantly impact the largest number of students and their caretakers which would in fact potentially produce the greatest population of successful young adults.

Works Cited

Collins, J. (2006). Latchkey kids: an American epidemic. Retrieved November 15, 2009, from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/73413/latchkey_kids_an_american_epidemic.html?cat=47

Hillcrest high school course listings page. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2009, from http://www.greenville.k12.sc.us/hillcrest/index.asp