Question: Can kids with persistent negative attitudes ever become positive?

Answer: Here is a true story that has helped one teacher work effectively for 20 years with hard to reach adolescents who have dropped out of school:

“One day, many years ago now, one of the guards at the Jamestown, North Dakota State Hospital came up and said, ‘Mr. Clausen, there’s a commotion down in the recreation room. I want you to go down there.’ As the state hospital administrator, I went down. Two young boys were just leaving the room.

I could see that they had completely dismantled the large stereo record player. I said, ‘Boys, wait a minute. You’re not quite finished with your job.’ ‘What do you mean?’ the boys replied. I said, ‘Well, you took this record player completely apart and look at all these parts all over the floor. I want you to put this back together before you leave, and I mean it.

I’ll go upstairs and get my tool box if you need some more tools and I’ll help you some if you need it, but I want you to put this back together the way it was before.’ I went and got my tool box, came back, left the tools and went back to my office.

About two hours later, I heard music coming out of the recreation hall, so I went back down there. When I opened the door, there the two boys were sitting, playing records. I went up to them and said, ‘Boys, you did a fantastic job. I forgot to tell you — this record player wasn’t working before. I really appreciate the good job you’ve done. Would you like any other record players to work on? Would you like learning radio repair or something like that?’ The two boys said, ‘Gee, we’d like that.’ So from that experience, I created a class in radio, electricity and appliance.”

Of course, today we are talking computers, electric guitars and amps and DVDs instead of stereo record players, but we are still challenged by adolescents who feel more comfortable being on the street than in the classroom, and it’s always easier to destroy things than build them.”

The Jamestown State Hospital administrator and his philosophy is still worth holding up as a role model: Take a negative experience and hold people responsible for it; decide to turn it into a positive experience by providing positive encouragement and practical support. If you’re thinking this isn’t very realistic, remember that it’s a true story and one of those boys, Ron Clark, credits that Jamestown experience with turning his life into a totally different, positive direction.

We also need to be thankful for the poeple who invest their lives working with challenging children and youth, staying steady and thinking creatively.

If you would like to talk about the challenges in raising children, call the toll-free Parent WarmLine at 1-888-584-2204/Linea de Apoyo at 1-877-434-9528. For free emergency child care call Crisis Nursery at 1-877-434-9599. Check out www.familiesandcommunities.org.