Welcome to my new blog.!!! My name is Shira Dillon and I am a high school teacher in Los Angeles, CA. This blog will explore the mind and life of teenagers today and help adults better connect with them. Please come by often or subscribe so you can receive these bogs by email. And don't forget to like my FB page www.facebook.com/ParentsTeachersandTeens to unite with me to help public education become a better institution of learning. Our children need it!
I have spent the last several blogs discussing the 6 basic human needs and how we can apply them to our life for decision-making and self reflection. We can also use the 6 basic human needs in order to improve our relationships with others. In the simplest way to explain it, if we give people what they need in a positive way, we improve the quality of their life and the experience we have with them.
As a teacher and parenting consultant, I have had conversations with parents wondering how they can keep their kids a way from gangs. So I ask my clients what have they've already done towards gang proofing their kids and the answers are always the same.
Answer #1: "I told my child if they join a gang I was going to beat their butt!"
Answer #2 : I told my child if they join a gang I will put them out!"
Answer #3: "I made up a story about a boy who joined a gang and how he got killed by one of his own gang members to scare him into not joining a gang."
It doesn't take a genius to realize that none of these answers are effective. I'm sorry, but scare tactics are not effective ways to get someone to stop doing something. Honestly, by the time a child becomes a teenager, they won't stop doing anything permanently until they take ownership and want to stop.
So if you have a child that may get approached by a gang, the way to handle this situation is to make sure that your child does not need anything from the gang. If your child's six basic needs are being met in a positive and fulfilling way; the desire to join a gang will not be there. When kids join gangs it is because the gang is fulfilling needs that they aren't getting at home, at school, or elsewhere.
Now, let's take a look at the six basic needs and how gangs can often fulfill these needs if they're aren't solid, foundational things in place.
6 Basic Human Needs and How A Gang Can NEGATIVELY Fulfill Them
1. Certainty- This is a need for comfort, security, and for things to be the same. Gangs provide certainty for its members. The comfort and security of being apart of something, the routine meet ups, and the gang banging activities all serve as a way to provide security for a child.
2. Uncertainty- The need for things to not be the same. The part of life that adds adventure and spice. Gang activities can provide a lot of excitement and adventure. Adrenaline rushes through the body when gang members spontaneously get into a fight, tag on a wall, break into a house, or steal a car. This isn't the good aspect of uncertainty, but it is uncertainty nonetheless.
3. Significance- This is the need to feel important and special. I haven't met a gang member yet that didn't feel important. Gang members are just as proud and aquire a sense of importance from a gang as a football player gets from being on a team, a fraternity member gets from being apart of a frat, and a religious person may get for being a "deacon" in the church. We all need things in life that shows us we are important. Have some positive things in place so that a gang cannot come and give your child significance.
4. Connection/Love- This is the need to bond with other people and to feel love. This is one of humans greatest fears; to not be loved. So it is very important that our teenagers feel love. Gangs make its members feel connected and loved. They connect by spending great amounts of quality time together, they dress alike, get their hair shaved together, get tattoos, piercings, etc. What make gangs so powerful is their ability to give its members a family. This family is a feeling of connection and love. A need that teenagers so vulnerably need.
5. Growth - The need to grow and expand as a person. This isn't a physical growth, but a need to think and discover ways to evolve. The gang provides this. It may not be the way you would like for a child to grow. Many times parents says things like, "I don't know you anymore Johnny, you've changed." Exactly, Johnny has grown negatively because he is influenced by the gang.
6. Contribution- It truly is better to give than succeed. Giving feels good. This is the need to help someone or something and make a difference. I see students who are in gangs who love to have a friend come by the classroom and tell them to leave so they can all get together and contribute to stomping a boy into the ground. A free "beat down" from your fellow gang members is contribution. They extended their services to help out a friend. Just in this one act a teen is meeting the need of contribution, connection/love, and uncertainty. Let one boy be the best at beating down people and you have just added significance. Four needs being met in a single gang-related act.
So now what?
A person only needs 3 of these basic needs to be fulfilled in order to be addicted to something.
Ask a teen that you know if they are getting these 6 basic needs fulfilled at school? at home? at church? or in any other activites? If not, as soon as something else comes alone to fulfill atleast 3 of their needs, your teen will be addicted to whatever that something else is.
That's normally when parents call me. My advice to you is to not wait until the child is in a gang. Let's begin now gang proofing our kids by making sure at least 3 or more of the 6 basic human needs are fulfilled.
Shira Dillon is a high school teacher in South, Central Los Angeles. Shira has over 15 years experience working with teenagers and is an expert with helping them and their parents deal with teenage issues. Ms. Dillon is the author of the book Sex, Drugs, and Other Elephants: How To Deal With Teenage Issues that share true stories from the authors life, as well as true stories from teenagers and how they deal with their problems. For more information about the book go to www.heyiwantthatbook.blogspot.comFor a consultation, email me at shiradillo@gmail.com
Follow me on Twitter @ShiraNicole
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