COMMUNITY: THIRD PILLAR OF SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN

It takes a village. And a culture of health.

Summary: Some threats to children are beyond what homes and schools can handle; place-based communities are a valuable partner and pillar of support.

With modern home life often falling short of quality time and full support for children, and with schools and teachers under increasing pressures from multiple sources, the next place a child can hope to find support is from extended family, a caring neighbor, a church youth program, community or special sports, or some other place-based entity or activity.

As Hillary Clinton wrote in It Takes a Village: “…like it or not, we are living in an interdependent world where what our children hear, see, feel, and learn will affect how they grow up and who they turn out to be.” That was in the book’s 2006 edition before social media and cell phones so fully grabbed the attention of America’s youth

Although we have recognized the need to protect children from online threats for over two decades, we still lack good solutions. And the need is only intensifying with artificial intelligence. How do we use this and other marvels of technological advancement and still protect children? And the problem is not only distracted attention and online threats; radiation emitted by phones, wi-fi, and cell towers is a danger being assessed in the legal system. Unfortunately, America has walked far into our current technologies without paying attention to the concerns of those who have tried, sometimes for decades, to warn us of their harms.

Parents and schools cannot solve such dangers alone. Today, the need for a village is more acute than ever. Place-based communities can be the space in which face-to-face activities give youth connection with the real world, with nature and hands-on engagement - like gardening and building, fishing and biking - experiences that develop skills and promote values like giving, being part of a team, and caring about others.

It won’t be easy. Finding solutions starts with understanding the problem and finding the causes. Most often that means looking at changing the things we have created and come to depend on, and this means we must choose to put children above all else - above profits, above favored lifestyles, above political pressures and conveniences.

For those issues that are place-based like pesticide spraying, contaminated water, and toxic wastes, communities are needed as problem identifiers and advocates for change; they must take on the larger economic and political forces that resist change. For example, a large, community-level advocacy effort is having success around the placement of 5G towers, especially near schools and homes. Place-based communities can gather their strength from numbers and call up the forces of their citizens acting together.

And when communities take a focus on wellness, their awareness of what is harmful increases, and their ability to make change at the local level becomes a powerful pillar of support for all residents, including children.