Professional Reading- week 4

Week 4

1. How do these populations change your understanding of the tween experience?
What I experienced as a tween is completely different from what tweens are dealing with today. Of course each tween experiences life completely different, but I feel that tweens are becoming older sooner. Reading the article “Coming out in Middle School” I was surprised that children know what “sexuality” is at the age of 12. I find this difficult to believe that a child, knows who they are and what they like before they know basic algebra. Knowing who you are is a struggle that many adults deal with, which makes me worry about how children so young can already determine their sexual preferences. However, I’m sure there is sense of freedom in “coming out,” to the world, rather than living a life of secrecy, which many tweens, teens and adults do for years.
Reading these articles made me realize that many of these tweens dealing with personal issues did not ask to be in the situation their in. Many runaway tweens have no other choice but to live on the streets. Tweens living in poverty have little say how money is earned in their homes. These tweens are trying to deal with whatever circumstances they have been handed. Many times it’s the parents or adult figures that fail these tweens and push them into the life they have. Its nature and nurture which molds children and which has the greatest affect on their environments.
2. What are some of the ways we can serve tweens in these and other special populations?
I feel that we serve these tweens like we would any other tween. We don’t allow special privileges or discriminate against them because they are experience life differently than others. However, I do feel there has to be some sense of sensitivity when approaching and dealing with these tweens. It is also important to not assuming anything about their situation and reasoning. We need to be a friendly, supportive, safe, warm, open-minded, and stable environment for these tweens. Each tween will be looking for something different when they visit the library and it is up to us to make sure we meet these needs. Whether it is a place to get out of the rain, find information about their changing bodies, have the opportunity to read a book regardless of the amount of money they have, or just want to relax, we need to provide this for these tweens without question or judgment. In the article Running in the Shadows, Urbina states “Around the country, outreach workers and city officials say they have been overwhelmed with requests for help from young people in desperate straits.” Although this article is referring to runaways I think this statement is true for all special populations and I feel that we should be a part of these outreach workers in our communities. We are community and information leaders, we should be member in helping and changing these tweens lives.