Wouldn’t it be nice if the media portrayed youth in a positive light rather than always focusing on the negative? It’s become a familiar lament pretty much everywhere these days, although when time is taken to do an analysis, it typically shows there’s much more coverage about all the good things teens do than what’s devoted to those who display less than desirable behaviour.
The negative stories often get bigger headlines and more attention, and they tend to stick in people’s minds, so the perception gets reinforced, but it’s a lot like getting nine compliments and one criticism; the one negative tends to be the comment that gets remembered.
It’s tough to do battle with human nature, but on that futile note, it’s worth mentioning that there have been a whole bunch of positive stories in the Wheel over the last few weeks about some of the many young people in our midst who are doing outstanding things.
One of those is recent Holy Trinity Academy grad Arianna Ramsay who was crowned Miss Teenage Canada earlier this month, giving her an even bigger platform to continue her advocacy on the effects of bullying.
Members of the Young Canadians, who put on a spectacular Grandstand Show every night at the Calgary Stampede, and Ella Day, who recently returned from a Rotary exchange in the Netherlands with the goal of studying international relations, were also featured.
On the athletics front, Seth Poelzer was named MVP at the recent Football Canada Cup in Regina, Josiah Tong won his age group at the 2024 Under Armour Junior Golf World Championship in Florida and a host of players from the highly successful Okotoks Dawgs system heard their names called in this month’s MLB Draft.
There are many others doing extraordinary things, so many in fact that they might even start changing people’s perceptions.
