Jayne Selby-Longnecker, founder, previous director and Chief Executive Officer of Benchmark Transitions in California, the Golden State, explained to Lon Woodbury on L.A. Talk Radio about the types of problems that emerge when young adults still need to grow up.
About Jayne Selby-Longnecker and Benchmark Transitions
Jayne Selby-Longnecker holds a B.A. from the University of Missouri and an M.A. in Education from the University of Colorado. She has worked in public education and in classrooms dedicated to helping at-risk youngsters with psychological challenges.
In 1993, she founded Benchmark Young Adult Institution, Inc. Her school began with one pupil, one employee and one bed. In 2008, Benchmark became Benchmark Transitions. Today the school has 30 full-time and part-time staff members and has a 20,000 square foot Life Skills Center. 20 apartments house the students and 45-50 register for the year.
Conflicting Notions When Young Adults Still Need To Grow Up
The interview started with a discussion about exactly how child-raising itself had changed over the generations. In many cases, culture itself has actually made it harder for young adults to adapt to the world.
Substance abuse today affects a large percentage of our youth, whereas in the past there were hardly any mood-altering or recreational drugs. It also seems that there were much less complex emotional problems to cope with in the past. While Jayne admitted the variety of emotional problems might be due to the fact that diagnosis is much more sophisticated, her working experience also suggested that young adults were more well-balanced in previous generations. In earlier generations, too, there were less distractions from computers and cell phones. Additionally, it was possible to collaborate with others for longer periods since there were less unrealistic assumptions about achieving quick results.
An additional visitor, Steven, a former student of Benchmark, was invited to discuss exactly how the method had aided his personal growth after a number of other therapeutic programs had fallen short in teaching him how to handle the challenges of his early adult years. He connected his current success in life to the fact that the Benchmark program helped him to believe in himself; it taught him self-control, and it aided him in developing a solid work ethic and an efficient personal regimen.
Toward the second half of the show, Jayne talked about the various dysfunctional parenting styles”the authoritarian parent, the permissive parent, and the abusive parent. The authoritarian parent does everything for the child without giving them any say in the matter, making the child feel helpless; the permissive parent allows the child to have everything that he or she needs, making the child lack self-reliance; and the abusive parent is an extreme example of an authoritarian parent, who uses language, attitude, and distancing to make the child feel insecure.
The program wrapped up with a conversation about exactly how parents can aid their kids and when a parent could need to consider a method like Benchmark Transitions for young adults who still need to grow up.
Find out more about Struggling Teens. Lon Woodbury has the recorded the entire interview on his L.A. Talk Radio show for people to listen to at any time.
