By Owen Charters, President & CEO, BGC Canada
November 18, 2024
We don’t have to want to get down on the floor and play mini-stick hockey to love kids – and you don’t need to provide shoulder rides for photos. You just have to believe in their possibilities and want to give them their opportunities.
For some reason, the debate about kids – whether we like them, want them, and what we’re supposed to ‘feel’ if we’re a parent are all over the media right now.
Debates about parenting – do you have to like being a parent to be a parent? Do you even need to like kids to be a parent?
My friend from university, who swore she didn’t like kids – ended up as a teacher, and then had three kids of her own that she adores. And my childless friends who love kids, work with kids, and are basically surrogate parents to many kids.
Each of our individual relationships to kids is fraught. Maybe we love kids, but we don’t love working with kids. Or maybe we’re drawn to the kids with challenges – we see something in them that needs help, needs a relationship, someone who cares.
It would be unusual to work for Clubs and not like kids. It’s possible, but unusual.
Yet within our Club world, there are so many versions of why we want to work with kids, or at least, for kids.
I have always loved working with kids – trying to figure them out, what makes each one tick, and cherishing the good and the bad ones. (Badly behaved, that is – I really don’t believe there are bad kids.)
Related: BGC Clubs are a modern solution to help parents
A few Club staff have been surprised when I got down on the ground to interact with Club kids, had them climb on me for a photo, engage in a conversation or exchange silly jokes.
Whatever our motivations are for working for kids, it is the spark of joy in their eyes that I believe we each live for, the opening up of ideas, options, and possibilities for them. That’s not just our responsibility as parents, but as Clubs.
BGC Clubs provide opportunities that set young people up for success
Wanting the best for young people is an age-old tradition that Clubs perpetuate, indefinitely. That’s not up for debate.
Since 2022, Clubs have collected over 20,500 survey responses and conducted over 850 interviews as a part of the Learning & Impact Project—making it the largest evaluative study of its kind in Canada. The Learning & Impact Project has found:
- 95% of Club kids have more people they like to spend time with.
- 92% of Club kids are better at helping out when it is needed.
- 91% of Club kids are more excited to try new things.
- 91% of Club kids are more confident in their abilities.
- 90% of Club kids feel more comfortable being themselves.
- 90% of Club kids are more aware of the feelings of others.
- 90% of Club kids are more physically active.
- 90% of Club kids work better with others.
We don’t have to want to get down on the floor and play mini-stick hockey to love kids – and you don’t need to provide shoulder rides for photos. You just have to believe in their possibilities and want to give them opportunities.
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