| Thursday, May 22, 2008 |
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| Written by Kevin Boling | ||
| Thursday, 22 May 2008 | ||
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The Path To Purpose
 Ten years ago, William Damon’s book, Greater Expectations, shocked and influenced our educational community by challenging the then-prevailing tendency to overindulge our children. Now, he returns to the youth development debate with “The Path To Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life”. Damon makes the much-needed case for the primary importance of purpose in raising and educating today’s youth by compelling us to look at how kids are developing today and why so many of them end up stalled in their emotional and intellectual maturation.Drawing on the results from a four-year study, the book investigates why so many young people are “failing to launch”—living at home longer, lacking career motivation, and struggling to make a timely transition into adulthood. Some have high aspirations but no realistic plans for fulfilling them, and others have been active in a number of pursuits but have found no reason to commit to any of them. Many of these “adultolescents” have been primed for success, achieving straight As, high SAT scores, and Ivy League educations, but when it comes time for them to enter the real world, many flounder and are apathetic, disengaged, or cynical.
The Path To Purpose takes readers inside the minds of these drifting kids and exposes the depth of their confusion and mental anguish about what they should do with their lives. The book also offers compelling portraits of young people who are thriving with purpose in today’s world, and reveals, from the results of studying those thriving young people, nine key methods that parents and all adults should employ to cultivate the sense of purpose needed to provide a positive direction in a young life.
Based on extensive interviews with highly purposeful young people, Damon identifies and explains how to apply these nine key methods, which played an important role in the lives of each of the highly purposeful youth he studied in-depth, in ways that help children discover a genuine life purpose without being domineering, such as:
Listen “closely for the spark, then fan the flame”
Introduce children to potential mentors
Discuss with them your own “callings”—the purposes that have directed your own life
Encourage an entrepreneurial attitude
Teach them how to pursue their highest aspirations in a realistic and practical manner
Stress long-term achievement instead of short-term horizons
Damon demonstrates that if we guide our children down the “path to purpose” according to these precepts, we can help them find their own meaningful, engaging life pursuits and enable them to make their successful transitions to adulthood. (Adapted from the publisher)
On today’s “Calling For Truth” Radio Program we will speak with Dr. Damon about “The Path To Purpose – Helping Our Children Find Their Calling In Life”.
To listen to the program, click on the words “Read more”
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