Youth Development Insight

By Jessica Pierson Russo When it came to screen time, as a parent of young children, I was never fully confident about what I should and shouldn’t let my children do. Fortunately, there are better parent resources now than when my own children were younger (see the American Academy of Pediatrics for recommendations on how to limit screen time based on age ). But as youth work professionals, what can our role be in helping youth and their caregivers find the right balance, especially for those younger ages?  The first thing we can do is be well-informed on the issue. Excessive screen time can interfere with developmental milestones in younger children, including language acquisition, social skill development, and physical coordination. The fast-paced and highly stimulating content of screen activities can also cause attention and focus issues with slower-paced activities such as reading and playing with toys. One study found that excessive screen time simulated for mice strongly i...

Citizenship is a concept commonly used in the field of youth development. It typically refers to young people being positively engaged in their communities. But what happens when you add global to citizenship? By adding this word, the scope of youth citizenship grows vastly and helps us re-imagine the arena in which youth live, learn, work and play. Global citizenship has been described as a continuum that ranges from being aware of the interdependent nature of our world, to understanding how local and global issues affect the lives of people around the world, to taking action to create a more equitable world. We see global citizenship as an outlook on life, a belief that people can make a difference, and a way of behaving that follows suit. Jessica Pierson Russo and I have developed a resource for youth-serving organizations and schools entitled WeConnect: A Global Youth Citizenship Curriculum. It's a program model and curriculum designed to show youth that they are parti...