To help foster growth, kids need a person that encourages them when they fail, keeps them from trouble and bad influences, disciplines them when they make bad decisions, helps with their mental health, and encourages them to learn and grow in whatever interest the kid enjoys.
Not all children have access to this kind of role model. And even if they do, it's not a guarantee, just a more favorable probability.
School is so strained that it can't be this system by itself. Good teachers help, but they're transitory, and typically not available after hours. And very few care in the same way a parent, grandparent, relative, or adoptive family would as they're not as deeply invested.
Other children can be horrible influences that can make a child depressed, angry, lose faith in themselves, and take up bad habits. Kids need to be shielded and told that the pain they experience is temporary, that life holds promise, and that the problems they face can be overcome.
Why did this get downvoted? Do people deny the influence that good role models make for children or just extremely resent the fact that we don't have a good universal solution for that problem?
Not all children have access to this kind of role model. And even if they do, it's not a guarantee, just a more favorable probability.
School is so strained that it can't be this system by itself. Good teachers help, but they're transitory, and typically not available after hours. And very few care in the same way a parent, grandparent, relative, or adoptive family would as they're not as deeply invested.
Other children can be horrible influences that can make a child depressed, angry, lose faith in themselves, and take up bad habits. Kids need to be shielded and told that the pain they experience is temporary, that life holds promise, and that the problems they face can be overcome.
It's a very hard and important problem.