Parents, You Get Back What You Give

This site is a place where you can connect ideas: small ideas, big ideas about how to support teens to performing meaningful community service. On this site you’ll find tools to engage and connect young innovators to lead this generation to become the Compassion Generation. Check out the questions and answers for parents page.

What you won't find on this site are any tricks to make community service "easy" or worse yet, ways for you to do the community service assignment for your teen. YOU are not the one who should be doing the community service assignment or worrying incessantly about how he’s going to get it done. Your teen was assigned the community service, not you! The best way to help is to guide and facilitate; don’t do it for him.  By doing it for him or by forcing him to do something that may not have meaning to him, your “helping” may do more harm than good in allowing him to learn the value and benefits of community service.  Remember, you’re there to support and facilitate opportunities, not to find or force them.

Our goals are to:

  1. Engage and encourage parents, educators and other mentors in supporting teens to create, implement and profile meaningful and successful community service projects.

  2. Help teens gain the self-confidence that their individual and collective efforts can have a meaningful impact on communities.

  3. Broaden the involvement and impact of teens in strategic philanthropy and volunteerism.

  4. Support teens in becoming aware of issues outside their own, immediate experiences.

  5. Enjoy our sons and daughters and have fun supporting their community service activities. 

We Believe:

  1. Parents of teens need practical ideas about teen motivation, interests and trends.

  2. Community service should be meaningful, fun and last a lifetime.

  3. Social entrepreneurs are being born every day.

  4. Technology, including social media, is a powerful tool when used appropriately and can improve lives.

  5. Our efforts to improve communities should include and engage youth as leaders.

  6. We can inspire the next generation to be generous, kind and compassionate.

By connecting here on Boomerang for Parents we can be encouraged and inspired by one another and together, we can renew our confidence in the next generation and support our sons and daughters.

Parents can and should:

  1. Participate in an informative conversation about the challenges of cultivating caring in teens.

  2. Guide our sons and daughters to use financial, technological and human resources for good.

  3. Inspire teens to create a more compassionate, sustainable world.