Youth: Unprofessional, Unpredictable, Unreliable, Unengaged, and Un-experienced?

Written on 23-Feb-2009 by Nick Micinski

Young people often get called a lot of dirty words (with only a few of them in this title…) but how much of it is true? Many a youth worker will recant their top ten horrendous youth stories, but generalizations about youth and their capabilities should not be quickly accepted.

In the following series of blog posts, I hope to examine the various labels the youth sector uses to describe young people.

The problem with young people is that…

They are unprofessional and unpredictable.
They are unreliable.
They are unengaged.
They are un-experienced.

While these statements are sometimes true, their labels are ultimately problematic because they constrain young people to stereotypes and don’t acknowledge the positive side of having fresh perspectives.

Check back every few days as I post the next blog in this series.