Getting Kids off the Street: One Idea!

When I was a kid I was lucky enough to have a loving (if a bit crazy) family, a nice house and beautiful countryside to play in. Sure I moaned and complained about how boring everything was but looking back you can bet I'm incredibly grateful for the things I had. I had freedom and space, and thank God I had an imagination which kept me occupied. But for kids these days it's much harder. The media has turned all strangers into potential threats to our kids, so we wrap them in cotton wool and over protect them. Also, parents are so preoccupied with their own lives that the kids hardly get a look in...it's far easier to give them a video game and let them go and play some place else. Once upon a time grandparents lived with the family and they would often look after the kids or spend time with them, but now we stuff them in homes because they're too much bother and they cramp our style. In fact, old people are living longer so in fact they're often not around anyway, they'll be taking Jive lessons in Brazil or bungee jumping somewhere.

Yes I'm exaggerating but the main point is that many kids end up in trouble because they're bored and lacking a good role model or purpose. Some who come from broken homes where the parents simply don't care enough end up finding new families...Gangs. Here they can achieve 'respect' (whatever that is) and get excitement. Inevitably this leads to other issues like drugs and violence.

It's not all bad of course but the there are many kids who today are cute and baby faced who tomorrow will be damaged, directionless and a burden to society.

But how do you motivate kids? I've spoken to many people who say that kids simply don't care. If you tell them to do anything they tell you where to go (in no uncertain terms) and you can't motivate them. They would really just like to be left to their own devices, but the truth is they don't have any devices.

WHAT? ARE YOU NUTS? ... Okay, hear me out. How do you motivate kids, how do you motivate anyone? You have to provide an incentive. If I were to tell a kid from a rough and broken home to go out and do some good for the community they'd probably refuse. Some wouldn't but most probably would. If I asked them to raise money or try and join a local sports team or club they would be too tired, or too lazy or too busy hanging around the mall. But what if I said ... If you can raise money for charity, we'll give you a cut? And the more you raise, the more you get!

So you have an event like a fun run or a marathon or something and you get the kids to train for the race. They're monitored all along the way to ensure they meet their targets. At the same time they raise money for charity and the more money they can raise the more they'll get paid. You could even pay them some as they go along like a sort of loan against the final amount. This may sound a little unorthodox or unethical but what's the worst that could happen? They can't get the money until it's paid by the donors and you ensure that's all locked down. In the meantime you've got kids who would be doing nothing, training for sport, getting fit, raising money and achieving something. Surely if a program like this was well managed then it would be a win win. At the end of it you wouldn't save them all, but I can tell you that asking a kid to raise a wad of cash for charity and then not seeing a penny of it will not motivate them. Give them a return, make it feel like actual work with the added benefit of fitness (and glory too), surely this would be attractive to some of them? And once the kids have finished they can go again, or they may even be more susceptible to more conventional tactics having achieved this one goal.

Have a think about it? I could be that there's a scheme like this out there already, but if there is, then I haven't heard of it, and that means it's not promoting itself well enough. I would happily pay money to charity in the knowledge that some of it would be helping to turn the kids life around and that they would actually do the run or event.

Wouldn't you?