The World of Adults Today: Implications for Positive Youth Development

Abstract

Most American adults are not playing the roles they could in promoting positive youth development. The focus of this chapter is not so much on the roles parents play, nor on the roles played by adults who have some occupational or legally defined relationship with young people, such as child care providers or teachers. We will allude to the roles parents and teachers, for example, can play in affecting the climate for greater engagement by other adults, but the focus of this chapter is largely on those other adults who complete young people's developmental ecology: the adults who are unrelated to them and not bound by law or contract to relate to them at all. What roles are the rest of these adults playing in promoting young people's positive development, what issues and trends affect the level of their engagement with other people's kids, and what can be done to maximize the contribution those adults can make to young people's well-being? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)