Youth: Behavior Prevention Vs. Positive Development
While certain life skills programs focus on teaching the prevention of certain behaviors the Search Institute has found those programs can be relatively ineffective. Based upon their research The Family and Youth Services Bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advocates the theory of Positive Youth Development as a replacement for the less effective prevention programs. Positive Youth Development, or PYD as it's come to be known as, focuses on the strengths of an individual as opposed to the older methods which tend to focus on the "potential" weaknesses that have yet to be shown. The Family and Youth Services Bureau has found that individuals who developed life skills in a positive, rather than preventive, manner feel a greater sense of competence, usefulness, power, and belonging.
Read more about this topic: Life Skills
Famous quotes containing the words behavior, prevention, positive and/or development:
“The fact that behavior is “normal,” or consistent with childhood development, does not necessarily make it desirable or acceptable...Undesirable impulses do not have to be embraces as something good in order to be accepted as normal. Neither does children’s behavior that is unacceptable have to be condemned as “bad,” in order to bring it under control.”
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“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
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“Nurturing competence, the food of self-esteem, comes from acknowledging and appreciating the positive contributions your children make. By catching our kids doing things right, we bring out the good that is already there.”
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“Information about child development enhances parents’ capacity to respond appropriately to their children. Informed parents are better equipped to problem-solve, more confident of their decisions, and more likely to respond sensitively to their children’s developmental needs.”
—L. P. Wandersman (20th century)