Teenagers

In this day and age when everybody is keen to moan about teenagers, their manners, their binge drinking, their clothes, their lack of respect etc I thought I would write a post about the good teenagers can do. As many of you know my children are heavily involved in the scouting movement. Dillon and Mollie are scouts and Ben is a beaver. These activities would not exist if it were not for the leaders who give up their evenings and weekends to run their groups. Dillon and Mollie's troop is led entirely by young adults who are in university. Their main leader was eighteen when he first started as a general leader and took the helm of the troop a year later taking the troop to the Czech Republic that year. These young leaders build up a great rapport with the teenage scouts as they bridge the gap between teenagers and parents and they set a great example to our children. Last week Dillon and his friend Rory were asked if they'd be young leaders with the cub troop and without hesitation they both said yes. This will involve giving up an evening and weekends to help with children aged eight to eleven which is a big commitment as they are both in Junior Cert year (their first state examinations). Of course I am one proud mama, so remember those hairy lads you may see on the bus could have hearts of gold underneath their baggy, black t-shirts.