Skip to main content

PACEsConnectionCommunitiesBooks! Educational Videos! Documentaries!

Books! Educational Videos! Documentaries!

Here's a place where you can review books, educational dvds and documentaries that relate to ACE concepts or trauma-informed practices. "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." ~ Nelson Mandela

The Road to Whatever

 

Elliott Currie is a Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine.

In his book, the ROAD TO WHATEVER: MIDDLE CLASS CULTURE AND THE CRISIS OF ADOLESCENCE, Currie weighs in on the causes of the many perils that afflict middle-class adolescents. Currie notes that while this particular demographic enjoys widespread economic prosperity, the “children of that prosperity were turning up drug addled, locked in juvenile detention institutions, adolescent mental health wards, and drug treatment facilities; all too many were losing their lives in accidents and violence, and far more, although less drastically impaired, were adrift, at risk, and emotionally lost.”

He writes:

“It is no longer possible to deny that there is widespread alienation, desperation, and violence among the youth of what we have sometimes persuaded ourselves is a tranquil and unproblematic middle class. Yet for the most part, the crisis has been either ignored or, when it explodes into public view, misunderstood. And that is a tragedy, because there are lives at stake. There is much real suffering among middle-class adolescents. Most of it is far less spectacular and far more routine than the handful of incidents that reach the news. But it takes lives, cripples spirits, and destroys futures every day in the United States. The absence of adequate explanations leaves us unprepared to help where help it urgently needed; worse, it leads us to adopt strategies that, if anything, may make life more difficult for adolescents who are adrift and in pain.”

Currie includes extensive—and heartbreaking—interviews with troubled teenagers to show how childhood trauma and the lack of caring environments create a harsh culture that leads to self destructiveness, despair, and desperation. And his investigation can be read to gain insight into what has gone awry for many troubled adolescents, not just those in the middle class.

This book was written in 2004, and much of this will be familiar to those of you working to build a trauma-informed world. But Currie’s portrayals of troubled adolescents are so deeply empathic and show so vividly how the helping professions may inadvertently brutalize the kids they are supposed to be helping that the ROAD TO WHATEVER remains a timeless classic in my view. It’s why we here at ACES Connection do what we do. 

 

Add Comment

Comments (3)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Dana and Gail,

Thanks for your comments. Currie has also written books about America's prison system (imagine the ACE scores in that demographic!) and I'm hoping to meet with him about an upcoming project on that topic. I think I'll ask him if I can post a chapter from ROAD TO WHATEVER on our site. Kinda like a "picture is worth a thousand words," the first-person narratives culled by Currie are also "worth a thousand words" as they show, in no uncertain terms, why trauma-informed services are a must. This is the book that really made me "get it."

Thank you, Jill, for your post! Imperative we continue to shine light on all aspects of humanity and deepen our shared understanding of building a compassionate culture of care, hope, and healing. Our middle-class adolescents, and all youth, deserve to grow up in environments which support their safety, ignite their curiosity, mentor their life experiences, and align with their innate gifts.

From the youth I've been blessed to learn from and mentor, they continue to teach me the power of at least one, caring, supportive, trusted adult in their lives. Research proves consistently the healing which comes from trusted relationships.  We all have the power to do that, and be that, trusted relationship. 

Tremendously inspiring to learn from and be inspired by our members on ACEs Connection, I'm uplifted daily with all the champions on the front line of the resilience-building movement unfolding in our nation and world sharing their solutions.

Thank you for sharing this, Jill. I suspect that the issues are just worse than in 2004 BUT we can do so much to support these teens... and more and more i feel like it comes back to simply educating them about ACEs and resilience and supporting them to find their way in a complicated world with many challenges presented daily to them.   Shifting things in the adolescents of today (and parents of tomorrow) is the ultimate prevention!  

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×