By Curt Williams, Founder & Executive Director
Recently, my son returned home after a few days only to find that his 6-month-old puppy, Rosso (pictured above), had gone rogue in his absence and decided to destroy a few things out of boredom or just general mischievousness. Being a working dog breed, he has some strong instincts that, if not satisfied with interaction, play or attention, will make their way to the surface. He was being cared for, but his family was away, and he found ways to keep himself occupied. These ways were not constructive, but destructive.
Rosso is not unlike the boys in our care here at Youth-Reach.
In fact, they have many of the same tendencies. We have found that if the guys are occupied with work, play or worthwhile diversions, their energy can be channeled in productive and constructive ways. It is the times when they are left alone that things can get sketchy very quickly. We have often noticed that on cold, rainy days our staff had better be creative and find ways to burn off some of their calories in a positive way, or things will quickly devolve into feral behaviors. As we have noticed often, these guys do not do well with too much free time—which is about 15 minutes of unstructured or unsupervised time. It can get crazy quickly, but hear this: it is ok, as these are young males and they are not designed by God to be passive. Here is another saying that has run around Youth-Reach for years:
“We don’t want to tame ya. We want to aim ya.”
Correct, we do not want to tame these boys, as they are created to be aggressive, protectors, providers and leaders. This means that the many inherent qualities that make strong men must also be aimed in the right direction. They must learn to channel their strengths for good and not for evil. They must have knowledge, but well-combined with wisdom. They must learn to value integrity over convenience, work over avoidance, honesty over embellishment, and courage over fear. This is a delicate balancing act: we are often hard on the boys but never harsh. Here is one of our basic tenets:
“You cannot prepare boys to face adversity by protecting them from adversity.”
The journey from boyhood to manhood cannot be completed without enduring pain and adversity. It cannot be completed without failure, tenacity, challenges, heartbreaks, rites of passage, hardships, and the realization that life is far from fair and those who overcome are those who can take life’s punches and keep getting up. So we must make things difficult, allow the hardships. And slowly acclimate these guys to the many disappointments that real men know how to navigate. So that leads me to the next mantra that has been repeated many times at Youth-Reach:
“We don’t run a little girl’s dance school.”
If a boy is looking for an easy, always-fun, entertaining environment, he’d best not come to Youth-Reach. Here, privileges are earned as are tough consequences. We are not raising boys, but men, and our goal is to produce God-honoring husbands and fathers; men of deep character who know right from wrong and who consistently make good choices. They put others ahead of themselves and know the value of hard work. They are not satisfied with mediocrity or with easily attainable goals. They nurture dreams and find ways to see them come to fruition.
That is what you are supporting when you give to our work. You are not supporting lazy, listless boys sitting around playing video games and eating frozen burritos all night. If you are going to invest in them, it is our job to see that your investment yields a strong return. Thank you for that investment.
See this post for one example of how we kept these guys occupied with a trip they earned.
