About 15 people met Friday evening, May 1, to discuss our relationships with our children. The panelists represented the major ethnic/linguistic groups living here at NRV.
We began by finding agreement with these premises:
- children who fight or hurt each other some other way (e.g. profanity, insults) should be stopped;
- children who harm or break trees or plants should be corrected;
- children who leave garbage, waste paper, etc. around should be corrected.
We then discussed questions centering on how we adults need to respond when a child misbehaves or creates trouble. We found that with our own children, we are clear and firm regarding misbehavior, and we both talk about our expectations and try to help them solve the problem.
However, it also came out that we are all a little hesitant to become involved with kids outside our own cultural group.
Along this same line, some people said they were a little more tolerant of children fighting than others: “I would let them (the fighting children) work it out.” Others pointed out that young people in a fight may not have the ability to back away and resolve the issue peacefully and respectfully – that this has to be taught, seen in action.
We also acknowledge that what we do as adults is important in the eyes of any young person we come in contact with or are seen by. Few other differences across ethnic/linguistic groups were voiced.
Discussion moved to the problem of what to do when older children or adolescents intimidate or threaten residents. Women in particular experience being cursed and/or threatened when they try to stop bad behavior, and people who don’t communicate easily with English feel they have no one to turn to for help. Expressions of fear and dismay came from the heart.
One homeowner who attended later wrote that we don’t realize what fears some people – especially older women – may be living with at NRV. Most homeowners are protected by cultural and societal privilege that offers protection and buffering from intimidation, so such intimidation and threats to personal safety may not be seen in the lives of others. We all need to be concerned about such intimidation and the resultant fear and isolation, and seek ways to be vigilant, involved and active. Some older teenage boys acquire tremendous power by fear, something which becomes very attractive to them. At base, we need to be sure to stay on this problem by involving those who do have the power to take care of this.
We talked more about this particular problem and the general problem of being intimidated, ignored, even cursed, when trying to intervene. Generally, the resources to turn to are:
- NRV property management staff
- NRV Security
- Seattle Police Department, South Precinct
- the Neighborhood House site manager (if the problem is on the premises of Neighborhood House)
Some of the contact info for these resources are on the Contact page on this site. Additions or corrections to this information can be sent to website@newrainiervista.com.
People also suggested that:
- we all spend more time being present and walking around NRV, especially being present in our central park. Everyone agrees that when adults are around, misbehavior is greatly reduced;
- we return to a pattern of monthly meetings with a community police officer (preferably a woman) for all residents to talk about issues, needs, problems. (A resident who lived here several years before NRV talked about the help of such meetings.);
- we organize and hold ‘town hall’ meetings for all residents, at which community issues, needs, problems can be aired, and at which we would have more opportunities to meet and get to know each other and our children.
This is a large, important area for all of us who live here to focus and work on. We welcome and appreciate your ideas, comments, involvement and help. If you’d like to get involved, please download this form.
The next meeting of the Family Support Group will be on Wednesday, June 3, 6-7:30 p.m. at Neighborhood House. It will be a continuation of the same topic, NRV Residents, Children and Adolescents. We plan to have it take the form of a ‘town hall’ meeting, and we’ll invite all of the “who to contact when a problem becomes dangerous, is out of hand, involves threats, etc” resources mentioned above.
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