Youth/Adult Dialogue, Beneficial for Both Parties...

By Stefan Rubicz

“When Luke was frustrated with his family, and needed help, he went straight to Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Instead of a gangly Star Wars-obsessed 14-year-old boy using this incredibly relevant Star Wars reference, to my surprise it was a woman around seventy.

I think this is a perfect example of familiar youth and adult stereotypes being destroyed, which happens often at the Development of Island Teens (DOIT)-sponsored Youth – Adult Dialogues. I think that the Youth-Adult Dialogue is the very thing that is needed to improve relations between the adults and youth on Vashon Island.

I discovered at the dialogue that it was exceptionally beneficial to have the chance to speak to adults, to bring up issues that I felt are important and hear what adults had to say. Stephen Seigel, who has helped organize and attended all of the past Youth-Adult Dialogues, is ardent about the dialogues.

“It is always helpful and important for me to have more contact with youth, and to hear what they have to say,” said Seigel. One of the main discussions at the forum was about the concept of mentors and community elders, and people involved in this discussion became excited about the idea.

Seigel came away from the discussion with the desire to create a setting where adults who are looking to help or mentor youth, and youth who would want some kind of mentor could meet as a group and discuss things that they are interested in.

I felt, along with others, that there was not enough time for open discussion with the entire group. There were “fishbowls” where youth were focused on and could say whatever they wanted to, and then the adults would do the same thing. But the adults could not reply to the youths’ comments, and vice versa. I felt there was not enough time to cover everything that people brought up, and I wish that it could have been longer. Seigel feels the same way.

“I would love to see this forum take place over an entire day with several open discussions where you can respond to something that someone has just said, but do this in a very organized, facilitated way,” said Seigel. “It’s about building a community and, if you think about a community, it takes years and years to establish and, even with that, there is always room to go deeper and find more truth.”

Until I went to the Youth-Adult Dialogue, I was exceedingly skeptical and believed that it was simply a place for adults to gripe about teen drinking and drug use. I found out that this, of course, is not true at all, and I am glad that I decided to set my preconceptions aside and attend.

“The most important thing that [people who are skeptical] can do is come to the circle and share why you are skeptical,” said Seigel. “The best thing to do is to bring that skepticism in its fullest form to the Youth-Adult Dialogue, and let the adults and youth know why and then we can work from there. So if someone is skeptical, I say be skeptical, and bring that skepticism to the group.”

What most of these skeptics of adult/youth interaction don’t realize is how similar youth and adults and their problems really are. I was amazed to hear 60-year-old men talking about how they feel like little kids still, and feel like they still don’t understand so many things.

“The interesting thing that I have learned from all of these [dialogues] is that the issues of adults and the issues of youth are exactly the same, they are just packaged differently. And that packaging looks so different that youth and adults look at each other and don’t believe that they are actually feeling the same things about the same issues, but they do,” Seigel said.

Stefan Rubicz, who grew up on Vashon, graduated from Vashon High School.