Blog

“We are highly focused on promoting favorable youth outcomes, things like positive identity formation, character development, leadership, civic engagement, social entrepreneurship, media and financial literacy, conflict resolution…. and we’re focused on prevention, working on issues like youth suicide, prescription drug use by young people, the opiod epidemic, those types of things.” Stephen Wallace Center for…

For more than twenty years, I have been debating—and deflecting—in the proverbial public square—the proposition advanced by the Amethyst Initiative and more than a few parents that lowering the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) will solve our nation’s problem (and fatigue) with youth and alcohol. Perhaps a recently released study will help settle the matter. In a January 2017 USA Today article, Karen Weintraub…

Is it time, again? With a virtual army of social media followers, survivors from Stoneman Douglas High School may be seizing an opportunity to take their futures into their own hands, inspiring young people nationwide to end the scourge of violence they know all too well. That opportunity is reminiscent of the one that students…

Kids do the darndest things. Yet, while the Twitterverse was momentarily captivated by a teen and his finger-ready smartphone filming of the fast-approaching superstar Justin Timberlake during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime extravaganza, a more important story for young people was unfolding on the (not) frozen tundra of U.S. Bank Stadium. What was it? The tenacity…

Behind the magic of summer camp lie the fundamental building blocks of experiential learning, social development, character, civic engagement and other 21st-century “soft” skills that might very well translate into job opportunities one day. Who knew? “From the time courageous and forward-thinking educators created what has grown to become a world-wide camp movement here …, they knew…

Our children are at risk. And as rates of addiction soar for old and young, it’s essential that parents educate themselves about youth substance abuse. One 24-year-old college graduate told me, “I grew up in the suburban town of New Canaan, Conn., boasting some of the ‘best’ public schools in the country, high standardized-test scores and…

Big Little Lies Character, culture and American youth The turmoil roiling in industries ranging from entertainment to government to broadcasting and beyond raises some significant issues with regard to how we are raising our children and the examples that potentially powerful public role models are, even unwittingly, providing to American youth. One might reasonably argue that at…

Hunters and Farmers: Why ADHDers Can Thrive at Summer Camp Stephen Gray Wallace, MS Ed January 2018 In examining the etiology behind the widely diagnosed Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), one school of thought, championed by Thom Hartmann, author of the Complete Guide to ADHD, speaks to the concept of “hunters and farmers in modern society.” This…

Kids In The House  Find videos done by Stephan Wallace for KidsinTheHouse  

When High School Happened 01/03/2018 11:37 pm ET JOE PIZZIO While organizations such as the Center for Adolescent Research and Education (CARE), The JED Foundation, and the Jordan Porco Foundation have rightly focused on the often-difficult nature of the transition from high school to college (think staggering rates of mood disorders, substance use disorder and suicides), there is another transition…