Teaching Each Develops Core Beliefs Young People Need to Flourish
Children don’t flourish in a vacuum. They suffer if they don’t get love, support, and validation, and if they don’t believe they can influence their futures. In fact, prevention experts have recently narrowed down the five core beliefs children need for positive development:
- I am seen and loved
- I matter
- I can influence my life and health
- I can overcome hard things
- I have support
Most adults would agree that overcoming hardships and steering toward a healthy life through good decision-making are important skills. But some overlook mattering, and how critical it is to be feel seen and see yourself represented in the world. When we celebrate Black History Month each February, we do so partly as preventionists—as youth advocates working to promote all five of the core beliefs needed for flourishing, which includes reduced substance use and addiction.
Health-Promoting Relationships
The health-promoting relationships (HPR) paradigm can lead our efforts. HPR are defined by researchers as “a way of being with youth that enables their healthy development and well-being by cultivating protective beliefs.” We all aim to be a positive influence on young people, and this research helps us by:
- Validating the efforts we are already making
- Highlighting precise skills we can develop to be even more effective.
Mattering
I matter: to self and others is one of the core beliefs crucial to young people’s physical and mental health. Children who are part of a protected class may experience sexism, racism, ableism, or other systemic forces which erode or erase entirely their sense of mattering. Racism, for example, is often not overt, but can come in the form of microaggressions: subtle slights and insults which may or may not be intentional.
Caring adults can combat the effects of microaggressions on youth by learning and employing micro-skills—concrete actions we can use to:
- Strengthen our connection with young people
- Activate or reinforce the belief “I matter“
Beyond Simple Knowledge
Before adults can combat the effects of microaggressions, they must learn to see and accept them. Beyond cultural competence—which assumes that knowledge of “the other” is enough—cultural humility is required. Defined as a life-long mindset of self-evaluation, openness, and commitment to addressing power imbalances, cultural humility begins with curiosity, continues with respect for others’ lived experiences, and is put into action by forging deeper, more respectful relationships.
Child advocates and researchers out of Ann Arbor, Michigan offer that the search for cultural humility results in transcendence—an acceptance that the world is more “complex and dynamic than we can perhaps imagine.”
Cultural humility . . . encourages us to envision the multiple possibilities of difference that exist beyond ourselves and even the children and families with whom we interact. We lend our expertise based on what we know, draw on the expertise of the (children) with whom we work, and recognize that the vastness of experience likely exceeds all that is to be known.
Micro-Skills in Action
Just as small aggressions build up and have a large impact on children’s development, so, too, do small, positive actions. Below are micro-skills adults can learn to use which encourage the experience of mattering.
* Adapted with permission from Zach Mercurio, PhD, The Power of Mattering.
Let the Toolkit Be Your Guide
The Health-Promoting Relationships Paradigm toolkit encourages us to consider how we, “may or may not already practice each of the skills.” We can ask ourselves:
- What supports me in being more likely to use this micro-skill?
- What works well in my application of the micro-skill?
- What could I do more of, and what are my greatest opportunities for development?
The toolkit offers a self-assessment, which can guide caring adults to create a plan for developing micro-skills around mattering and other core beliefs. In the meantime, celebrate Black History Month, and Women’s History Month in March! Be joyful in recognizing all the people who show up in your world. Look, listen, and truly see and hear each of them. You, too, will be doing addiction prevention, as well as strengthening relationships that you need for your own mental and physical wellness!