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In this practical book, Dr. Peter Benson, a leading authority on childhood and adolescence, describes a simple yet powerful plan for awakening the spark that lives inside each and every young person. Sparks—when illuminated and nurtured—give young people joy, energy, and direction. They have the power to change a young person’s life from one of “surviving” to “thriving.” Grounded in new research with thousands of teenagers and parents, Sparks offers a step-by-step approach to helping teenagers discover their unique gifts, and works for all families, no matter their economic status, parenting situation, or ethnic background.
"With sixty-seven scholars from four continents and many diverse disciplines contributing as authors to the volume; with fourteen scholars from around the world serving as editorial advisors; with financial support provided by the John Templeton Foundation via Search Institute; with frequent conversations occurring with colleagues at Fuller Theological Seminary; and with the careful attention of editorial work provided by Sage publications, this handbook provides a remarkable contribution toward those ends." --JOURNAL OF YOUTH AND THEOLOGY "Research into spiritual development during childhood and adolescence has . . . yearned for the stimulus of integration, cross-fertilization, and internat...
Drove House has always loomed large over village life. Boarded-up for years, it is reputed to be brimming with ghosts, and is shunned by the locals - all except Billy, for whom it has been the site of childhood dens and secret adolescent adventures. When the captivating Muriel moves in with her bohemian mother, they sweep out the ghosts and breathe new life into both the house and Billy's quiet rural existence. After an idyllic summer, though, Muriel returns to her life in London, and the newly empty Drove House becomes the backdrop for Billy's struggle to reconcile the vanishing agricultural lifestyle he has inherited with the glimpses of a baffling new way of life Muriel seemed to offer. Charting the conflict between these two competing worlds, Peter Benson's award-winning first novel is at once a lyrical portrait of the landscape of the Somerset Levels and a touching evocation of first love.
Detailing daily actions that have a lasting significance on kids, this guide for all adults shows that positive adult-child relationships are one of the most important factors affecting a young person's development. Rather than focusing on teens' problems, this handbook takes a proactiveapproach and highlights hopeful actions adults can take to have a positive impact on a young person's life. For example, adults will learn to use 30-second encounters to offer compliments and to ask meaningful questions of children that lead to deeper conversations. This call to action invites every adult to be an advocate for children and teenagers, promoting happier, healthier, and more successful youth.
MOVING THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT MESSAGE: TURNING A VAGUE IDEA INTO A MORAL IMPERATIVE Peter L. Benson and Karen Pittman THE CONTAGION OF AN IDEA In the past fifteen years, countless programs, agencies, funding initiatives, profes sionals, and volunteers have embraced the term "youth development. " Linked more by shared passion than by formal membership or credentials, these people and places have contributed to a wave of energy and activity not unlike that of a social movement, with a multitude of people "on the ground" connecting to a set of ideas that give sustenance, support, and value to increasingly innovative efforts to build competent, successful, and healthy youth. There are several par...
“One of the most important contributions to the field of contract theory—if not the most important—in the past 25 years.” —Stephen A. Smith, McGill University Can we account for contract law on a moral basis that is acceptable from the standpoint of liberal justice? To answer this question, Peter Benson develops a theory of contract that is completely independent of—and arguably superior to—long-dominant views, which take contract law to be justified on the basis of economics or promissory morality. Through a detailed analysis of contract principles and doctrines, Benson brings out the specific normative conception underpinning the whole of contract law. Contract, he argues, is...
Developmental Assets and Asset-Building Communities examines the relationships of developmental assets to other approaches and bodies of work. It raises challenges about the asset-building approach and offers recommendations for how this approach can be strengthened and broadened in impact and research. In doing so, this book extends the scholarly base for the understanding of the character and scope of the systemic relation between young people's healthy development and the nature of developmentally attentive communities. The chapters in this volume present evidence that asset-building communities both promote and are promoted by positive youth development, a bi-directional, systemic linkage that - consistent with developmental systems theory - further civil society by building relationship and intergenerational places within a community that are united in attending to the developmental needs of children and adolescents.
In this practical book, Dr. Peter Benson, a leading authority on childhood and adolescence, describes a simple yet powerful plan for awakening the spark that lives inside each and every young person. Sparks—when illuminated and nurtured—give young people joy, energy, and direction. They have the power to change a young person’s life from one of “surviving” to “thriving.” Grounded in new research with thousands of teenagers and parents, Sparks offers a step-by-step approach to helping teenagers discover their unique gifts, and works for all families, no matter their economic status, parenting situation, or ethnic background.
Researchers at Minneapolis-based Search Institute have identified 40 Developmental Assets that all kids need in their lives—good things like family support, a caring neighborhood, and resistance skills. Communities across the nation have embraced the book’s quick-read, commonsense suggestions for helping kids lead healthy, productive, positive lives and stay out of trouble. This revised and updated third edition draws on findings from a 2010 survey of about 90,000 kids (grades 6–12) from communities across the United States. The new data confirms the power of Developmental Assets in young people’s lives, reflecting updated levels of assets young people experience as well as the power that assets have to prevent high-risk behaviors and increase thriving behaviors.
In his provocative analysis, Benson (economics, Florida State U.; The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA) argues for contracting out and other controversial "private justice" options as preferable to government's pervasive and misguided criminal justice role. "Why the timing may be right" is the theme of the preface by Marvin Wolfgang, Director of the U. of Pennsylvania's Sellin Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law. The Austrian School of the series title favors less government economic control. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR