Helping Kids Succeed – Alaskan Style!

Practical Suggestions for Building Assets in Your Child

 

Asset #13- Neighborhood Boundaries

Traditional Ways to Promote Asset # 13

Definition: Community shares the responsibility for the safety and well-being of the children.

 

Send your children to an Elder when they misbehave. Let the Elder tell them a story that will help them learn the right thing to do.

— Hoonah

 

Work with the traditional council to decide the rules of your village. Help make sure school rules are consistent with community rules as much as possible. Discuss ways to help enforce rules that everyone agrees on.

— Elim
 

To Build Asset # 13 Parents and

Extended Family Can . . .

Remember that you are a role model for others.

— Anchorage

 

Have contracts with other parents for things like no alcohol at teen parties. Include agreements about sharing information with each other that you feel should be shared.

— Eagle River

 

Let your neighbors know you want to be contacted if your child misbehaves! Otherwise, people might not think it's OK to call.

— Haines

 

Know the laws of your community and follow them. If you don't like a law, work to change it — rather than just breaking it.

— Gambell

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: CARD Game The purpose of this game is to encourage constructive communication between adults and youth. The questions are based on the Asset-Building framework outlined in the book, Helping Kids Succeed - Alaskan Style. The questions correspond to the developmental assets framework presented in the book, Helping Kids Succeed - Alaskan Style. To order a copy, click here, or email alaskaice@aasb.org the cost of the game is $3.00 to Alaskan residents and $6.00 for non Alaskan residents, the cost of the game includes shipping.

 

 

 

Asset # 13 — Neighborhood Boundaries

Neighbors take responsibility for monitoring young people's behavior

 

46% of youth surveyed by Search Institute have this asset in their lives.*

 

*Based on Search Institute surveys of almost 100,000 6th to 12th grade youth throughout the United States

 

What are Assets?

Assets are 40 key building blocks to help kids succeed. Like a dream catcher, assets are the supporting threads in a young person's life that can keep away harm and invite goodness.

 
 

Insights on Assets

The effects of neighbors and neighborhoods on the development of successful youth has long intrigued researchers, policy makers, and community leaders. They often wonder, "Are neighbors important? Does a neighborhood impact youth? If so, how?"

 

The research that supports this asset #13 is based upon environments where neighbors lookout for the well-being and behaviors all you young people living in the area. To date, most of the research has examined the negative effects of social disintegration and poverty. However, there is increasing amounts of research that supports the positive effects on youth of the percentage of educated residents and access to appropriate positive adult role models in the neighborhood.

 

The presence of neighborhood boundaries is directly or indirectly associated with:

Higher levels of achievement (Bo, 1995); lower levels of leaving school (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, et al., 1993) and higher levels of high school graduation (Ensminger et al., 1996);

Improved youth development outcomes such as prosocial interpersonal competence with adults and friends (Elliot et al., 1996); and

Decreased teen births (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, et al., 1993); and decreased violent crime by youth (Sommers & Baskin, 1994).

 

What are you doing to build a neighborhood where you live?

 

 
 

News You Can Use

Conventional wisdom holds, and social policies are devised on the belief that the quality of parenting depends on the information, skills, and resources which individuals bring to the child-rearing task. But the evidence now shows that neighborhood norms profoundly affect how parents raise their children. When the community is dangerous and disorderly, adults establish fewer connections with others, resulting in less supervision of children "Normal" child rearing may be unachievable or even unwise for those trapped in these environments. What are the norms of the community within which you live? Which of the behaviors and attitudes of your community support youth?

How can you build upon those?

 

Quote:

While the world we live in is not understandable, it is embraceable. We are able to embrace the world when we embrace one of its beings. This is why we need community; why we need each other. Because by embracing others, we connect to the entire world.

Alaskan Community Builder

 

 

 

 
 

This newsletter and other asset resources are produced by the

Association of Alaska School Boards’

Alaska Initiative for Community Engagement (Alaska ICE) 

316 West 11th Street

Juneau, Alaska 99801

 

Tel: (907) 586-1486

Fax: (907) 586-1450

Email: alaskaice@aasb.org