It doesn’t surprise me that kids are joining gangs, entering communes and taking up with cults in alarming numbers. I am a former gang member, myself.
I joined a gang for the same reasons that kids today do, because being part of that gang made me feel really important and special. We wore our uniforms proudly for it proclaimed to the world that we belonged. We had rules, initiations, special insignia, rituals, songs, chants, signals and ceremonies. There were challenges, regulations and prescribed procedures to follow.
Looking back, I remember my days as a Camp Fire Girl with fondness and with pride, with a sense of gratitude for the caring and interested adults who met regularly with us because our interests, our growth, our development into competent adults was very important to them.
A great many of my friendships I treasure today were developed during those Camp Fire activities, either in clubs which met after school or at summer camp. So I know why kids join gangs, and it’s for the same reasons kids have always joined with others of similar ages and interests — to belong.
Of course, there are major differences in gangs as we know them today and groups such as Camp Fire, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Y-Teens and other fine youth organizations. One obvious one is that caring, capable adults serve as role models and leaders in these clubs, supporting, guiding, assisting, enabling young people to develop through the leadership opportunities such organizations provide. Yet it seems perfectly obvious to me that the appalling increase in gang membership correlates directly to the decreasing membership in traditional groups for kids and that decrease is caused in large part by lack of adult leaders.
There’s an old behavior theory that you can’t stop one behavior without it being replaced with another. I think this is true. Kids will find a place where they feel they belong, a place to bond together, a way to feel important and noticed and will create for themselves a way to feel special and to get attention. Without adult guidance, the direction these activities take will be of little use to society.
Adults seem to have “dropped out” of many traditional activities for children and youth. Aside from baseball, adults just don’t make time for these club activities children need so badly. Without such guidance, without adult time and interest, without an appropriate and interesting program which meets children’s needs, what else can we expect except that kids will find one way or another to meet their own needs?
There is little doubt that kids in gangs are smart, savvy, and clever along with dishonest, cruel, conscience-less and dangerous. It is a lethal combination, and the only “cure” I know is for all adults to become an essential part of programs that provide kids with the best of both worlds — that feeling that belonging to “our gang” provides along with modeling the responsibility to care and serve others.
Darby Kethan has a master's degree in child development, and has experience as a social worker, educator of young children, educational consultant, and as a professional trainer for a national educational foundation providing professional development to teachers. Visit her website at darbykethan.com.
