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 psychological umbilical cord is more difficult to cut than the real one. We experience our children as extensions of ourselves, and we feel as though their behavior is an expression of something within us...instead of an expression of something in them. We see in our children our own reflection, and when we don’t like what we see, we feel angry at the reflection.”
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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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“Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.”
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“Understanding child development takes the emphasis away from the child’s character—looking at the child as good or bad. The emphasis is put on behavior as communication. Discipline is thus seen as problem-solving. The child is helped to learn a more acceptable manner of communication.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)