It’s common to think of at-risk youth as being at risk of underage drinking, substance abuse, dropping out of school, joining a gang, or getting involved in some criminal activity.
The real risk to them, their peers, and to us, is that they may not reach their full potential. When they are given access to opportunities, they become the class valedictorian who gives the commencement speech. They are the custodian at the hospital who eventually becomes a doctor at that same hospital. They become the first responder saving lives. They become the successful business owner who donates to non-profits. They become the first person in their family to go to college. Like me, you’ve probably seen all these inspiring videos on Facebook or YouTube. It’s amazing what people can become when given a chance.
When young people don’t achieve their full potential, we all suffer. We all lose out on having the mentors, inventors, community leaders, philanthropists, and great parents that they could have been. The vibrant community ecosystem of wellbeing they would have created is absent. In that vacuum is where bad outcomes are fostered.
As I recall, I was 17 years old when my phone rang early on a Sunday morning. It was my mother calling to tell me that some high school friends of mine had died in a car accident. They were neighbors of ours. In our rural area, a neighbor was someone whose home you can see in the distance about a mile away, but you still feel close to them. These two brothers had been drinking, and were driving way over the speed limit. The roads in that area had very sharp turns and steep rolling hills that could cause a vehicle to go airborne at high speeds. Their car ended up crashing into someone’s home. Neither brother survived. It was at that age when I might have started drinking with high school friends. After that news, I lost my interest in drinking for many years.
Only later in life did I become aware that I probably was an at-risk youth, but didn’t realize it at the time. That would explain why I ended up at one of those camps for troubled teens. Yet, I seriously was clueless about being at risk, which is probably even more risky.
In my mid-teens, my first experience with alcohol was drinking 180 proof Everclear mixed with soda pop. Fortunately, much like cigarettes, I didn’t like it. When I realized that grain alcohol could be lit on fire, I noticed the flame was blue, similar to the flame produced by dragsters at the racetrack. I figured it was probably best not to drink dragster fuel.
There were other hazards equally dangerous and easily accessible. As a diversion, we were given dirt bikes as a safer alternative to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, or drugs. It’s quite possible that dirt bikes saved my life.
One summer, after school, riding my dirt bike down the gravel shoulder of the county road, I saw some heavy equipment in the distance. I stopped to ask a lot of questions of the workers, and learned that a professional motocross track was being built.
Once completed, the track was used on the weekends for televised competitive races. However, on weekdays, after school, the track sat empty. It was a very nice track and offered some riding more challenging than trails in the area. Yet, I still liked street riding, or in my case, riding on the shoulder of the road.
One of the dirt bikes we had was a street-legal enduro, with tread that offered a smoother ride and handled well on road or off road. The world of motorbikes offered much more complexity than anything else in my world at that time. By comparison, the other more dangerous diversions were too boring.
I somehow managed to survive the treacherous years of youth, and made it through college. Probably much credit for that goes to my father who appears to be a regular person but is probably more of a Zen-like mystic. He was the perfect parent for guiding my personality in a way that seemed effortless. He knew what would capture my attention and keep me out of trouble.
I’m grateful for the opportunities I had growing up, and this motivates me to think about what we can do for youth today to have opportunities that help them reach their full potential.