All We Have to Give 4/4: Expertise

The similarities between the teen and the toddler brain don’t end with a lack of impulse control. Teens also soak up information like sponges, they are just a bit more selective in what they are willing to absorb. Here is where we come through again, this time offering expertise.

Sometimes it’s our own expertise in our reference work and programs we conduct ourselves. Sometimes it is teaching teens to recognize expertise through resource evaluation. In many cases we provide expertise by bringing in experts to teach, inform, and entertain.

Some well tested ideas for offering expertise to your teens:

• Invite a nutritionist to talk about easy to make healthy food
  
• Have a poetry workshop for teens featuring a local poet
  
• Put together a panel of college students and personnel to discuss the realities of college life.
  
• Ask your local yarn store about teachers for a knitting or crochet class
  
• Offer a safety and self-defense class in cooperation with law enforcement
  
  

How do you provide expertise to your teens?