Helping middle school age youth (12 - 14) successfully transition to high school
Youth today are struggling like never before.
Youth are commonly unaware of the essential tools, resources, and strategies that are needed in today’s world of uncertainty in order for them to navigate life challenges and concerns, grow into highly capable, long term, goal-directed, morally conscious, resilient young adults, and to find a pathway to the sacred space that exists inside of them.
All youth require assistance and guidance to build character, to uncover their passion, and to withstand the negative impact of emotional turbulence and environmental stressors. As parents, teachers, coaches, mentors and the church community we want them to be capable of thriving as young adults and to also learn how to be of valuable service to others. For these reasons, middle school age youth (12 - 14) can profit tremendously from their engagement with adults who are culturally affirming, socially supportive, attentive to their needs as expressed by themselves, possess significant life experience, consistently act in ethical and spiritually mature ways, have subject matter expertise, and can lovingly provide adaptive, broad, and visionary solutions to many of the difficult circumstances that these youth are likely to encounter as they prepare for their transition to high school.
To greatly facilitate this work and positively influence the academic, career, social, and spiritual growth outcomes of today’s youth, ‘N Good Company, Inc has sought the advice of a diverse group of very accomplished, caring, and trusted professional educators and ministry leaders who have all helped ‘N Good Company, Inc to wisely draw upon the “usable” Christian “cumulative tradition” (Cantwell Smith, 1991) while crafting a fresh approach to experiencing critical ways of knowing, building good habits, gaining life skills instruction, and promoting positive development and encouraging regular use of spiritual practices by middle school age youth (12 - 14). Thereby, making solid its ability to produce a felt sense of belonging, form a dependable “life space” (Fowler, 1981), instill lasting hope in youth, and to conduct SmartMeasure Assessments of ‘N Good Company, Inc overall youth program outcomes.
WHO CAN THEY CALL?
WHERE CAN THEY GO?
Living in a single parent household without a positive male role model, middle school age youth (12 - 14) must still be able to find a way to survive any form of abuse, adversity, disconnection, discrimination, marginalization, racism or trauma and persist in overcoming low expectations, distrust of others, and their strengths, talents and interests having possibly not yet been identified or attentively nurtured early on which may contribute to their involvement in maladaptive, nonproductive, and unhealthy behaviors (i.e., early, sexually active, and unprotected sex, smoking, substance abuse, violence or gangs) and poor life outcomes much further downstream.
Emmy Werner discovered that “…children… developed serious learning and behavior problems by the age of ten, or had delinquency records, mental problems, or teen-age pregnancies by the age of eighteen (Konnikova, 2017).”
As a grassroots nonprofit, Christian parachurch ministry organization, ‘N Good Company, Inc exists to help in doing what it sees as the “sacred work” of closing the vulnerability gap for middle school age youths (12 - 14), by providing them with exemplary SQ21 certified spiritual intelligence coaching, by working in direct coordination as a “spiritual partner” with youths, their families, and local church pastoral leadership as an additional caring resource dedicated to keeping them out of harm’s way, and by accounting for, valuing and fully supporting the integrated development of every youth willing to participate in our programming on how to live a life full of virtue regardless of their circumstances.
ever notice how overworked single moms can hardly ever catch a break?
Now faced with the coronavirus pandemic, single moms are experiencing increased demands on their already limited time to accommodate homeschooling, keep their children sufficiently occupied, ensure overall household health, and all the while having to contend with escalating employment uncertainty.
‘N Good Company, Inc aims to lighten the load by providing a necessary outlet for mom to keep her middle school age youth (12 - 14) actively involved in a worthwhile church related learning activity, protected from harm, and to make it possible for her to better balance her time when it comes to being a good parent, and remaining hopeful, productive and able to best meet all of her important family needs.
But…
we’re in the middle of a pandemic!
COVID-19 has already influenced the future trajectories of businesses and organizations—and the Church is proving to be no exception.
Regular church attendance has been dwindling all across America for quite some time now and with the ongoing necessity for repeated shutdowns, partial openings, social distancing protocols, churches are increasingly finding themselves financially constrained as well.
This necessitates exploring alternative ways to most effectively serve the needs of their entire church family.
Live streaming Sunday services and the use of Zoom video conferencing, whiteboarding and sharing documents for multi-lesson Bible courses for personal, small group or church Bible studies has increased for churches that can readily afford to purchase the associated licensing, support and technology.
However, small congregations (100 adults or less) that are located in historically depressed communities of color are at a much greater risk over the long term of not being able to adequately answer the demand for new forms of engagement, non-formal learning, and generational understanding when it comes to regularly working with middle school age youth.
Data on African American youth indicate that 51% of eighth graders, 55% of 10th graders, and 55% of 12th graders report that religion plays a “very important” role in their lives. Consistent with these data, 46% of African American 10th graders and 40% of 12th graders report that they attend religious services weekly. In fact, African American eighth through 12th graders are significantly more likely to attend religious services, and significantly more likely to belong to a religious youth group than U.S. adolescents of other ethnic groups. Taken together, these data illustrate the centrality of religion for African Americans and the relevance of faith life across the life span.
— Jacqueline S. Mattis and Nyasha A. Grayman- Simpson
‘N Good Company, Inc can provide an inexpensive on-site or off-site alternative or both for presenting Essential Christian Spiritual Practices, Self-Care & Community Service, and Spiritual Coaching & Life Skills Instruction to foster character and depth with a theology that is completely consistent with that of the church for middle school age youth who have already expressed their strong desire to regularly attend youth ministry services offered by the church to its congregants.
I Know Because I was There Myself
“I was once a runaway — a Black boy in search of my true identity and a better “knowledge of self”; culturally, emotionally, physically, intellectually, socially and spiritually. I was quite unaware at that time that very often this searching, this lack of knowledge, can serve as a spiritual springboard to exploring God.
I was a child of a single parent on welfare, a runaway, and at age 12, a youth in foster care, and “ward — of the State.” I lived with 5 different foster families; each one helped me to appreciate and understand how difficult it can be to try and figure out for oneself how to become more empathetic, forgiving, persistent, and resilient.
— Jonathan Dunnemann, B.A. (Sociology) Founder and President of 'N Good Company, Inc., a Certified SQ21 Spiritual Intelligence Coach and a Youth Ministry Intern and Graduate Seminary School Student
Here’s what worked for me.
One day, I finally realized that my inability to allow the contemplative self to arise, to consistently ask myself, what is my purpose and to take the time to nurture my soul in ways that lead to spirit repair and where a sense of joy is vitally restored was the most constant and self-limiting impediment to my being able to live a life that is consistently filled with lasting hope, joy, meaning and purpose. Enrolling in an online course;
An Introduction to Christian Meditation: A Six Week Course offered by The School of Meditation through The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) gave me the motivation that I needed to begin my inner journey;
deciding what matters
thinking about goals
making right choices
responding to fundamental drives
searching for personal meaning
standing for something
moving towards achieving goals
making my life count
maintaining forward progress
nurturing the best in myself
achieving a well-lived life
‘N Good Company can make an impact on today’s middle school age youth
‘N Good Company, Inc exists to ensure that middle school age youth (12 - 14) can self-identify their needs, feel listened to, understood, valued, respected by positive and supportive caregivers and are well prepared to begin embodying Christian best practices that will facilitate their mature and spiritually intelligent daily living as they make steady progress toward transitioning to high school.
'N Good Company, Inc is enormously committed to helping youth, their families, church pastoral leadership, and their church community with the search for sacredness in life by encouraging and facilitating youth’s regular participation in a broad range of creative activities, life skills instruction, and spiritual exercises and practices that serve to;
how we help
normalize reactions, internal struggles, and improve the spiritual conditions of youth’s lives
encourage emotional expression, emotional control and emotional comfort by fostering self-disclosure and sharing
build on the strengths that they may already have
convey a sense of "control" and "mastery" on the journey toward a disciplined and rich spiritual life
foster social connectedness and community
promote group cohesiveness and service to others
encourage transition behaviors and training exercises for the spiritual life
create time and space for life transformation
provide good example through others, guidance, and a framework for coping with the everyday stress of daily living through spiritual practices that are in-line with biblical scripture and ideally deepen one’s relationship with God