What Youth Want You to Know About Parenting Today and Raising Strong, Healthy Kids
Parenting in 2025 isn’t just about rules and routines. It’s about relationships. While countless books and experts weigh in on how to raise children, the voices we hear the least are often the ones that matter most: the kids themselves.
In Episode 12 of “Youth Community Journalism,” young people take the lead to ask, share, and shape what great parenting looks like today. And why listening to youth might be the most important parenting strategy of all.
The Guests
*Dr. Glen Palm, author of “The Daddy Book,” national leader in fatherhood education, professor emeritus in early childhood and family studies at St. Cloud State University, and board chair of the Great River Children’s Museum.
*Clarence Jones, executive director and community health strategist at Hue-Man Partnership.
*Paige Hill, a third-year medical student at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a health consultant with Hue-Man Partnership.
Youth journalists sat down with these parenting experts to explore one of today’s most important questions:
What does it take to be a great parent in 2025?
Produced by the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation‘s Youth Community Journalism Institute at SPEAK MPLS in northeast Minneapolis, in collaboration with Conversaciones de Salud, this episode offers thoughtful, youth-led conversations with professionals in fatherhood, mental health, and culturally responsive parenting.
The show was broadcast live on SPEAK MPLS TV, the home of Minneapolis public access TV, on channel 75 on Comcast. It also was streamed live on the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation’s Facebook page.
A 9-year-old third grader, the brother of 15-year-old ninth grader Emily Palma Ramirez, one of the youth co-hosts for the show, sat in the director’s chair and helped with the live production in the control booth.
This is how we bridge generations and fuel community power.
What Do Youth Need Most From Adults Today?
From trust and communication to navigating mental health and technology, the youth hosts made it clear that parenting today is about being present, listening deeply, and creating space for young people to grow into themselves.
“It’s the balance right now,” said Jesus Rojas, age 16, one of the youth co-hosts. “We can improve by having the children’s opinion count more. Of course, we have different ways of seeing life, problems, and stress. But we need children to respect parents’ opinions, and they need to respect our opinions. We need to look for a combination of both opinions. That’s communication.”
Youth today don’t expect perfection. They just want to be understood, heard, and respected for their experiences.
“I think just listening, being there, actually being in the moment, is all we need,” Emily Palma Ramirez expressed. “Just being present in our lives.”
Wisdom From the Experts
The guests stressed the importance of parents being role models and showing children what healthy, respectful behavior looks like.
“One of the things that the parents can do is continue to be role models for their kids,” said Dr. Palm. “Just being good decent people who are kind and thoughtful. That’s one of the most important things.”
But parents are human, and being human means being imperfect.
“Parents make mistakes all the time,” Dr. Palm added. “They’re not perfect, and one of the things that can happen when you do make a mistake is you have to figure out how to repair that, how to make up, and one of the things that’s really important to teach your kids is how to understand I made a mistake. Like saying, ‘I yelled at you today because I was really frustrated that something happened to me. It wasn’t your fault.’ Then your child learns that making mistakes is part of life, and that it’s just as important to know how to repair those mistakes.”
What matters most? Showing up, being emotionally available, and building a relationship based on love and respect. It’s not about having all the answers.
“We talk about emotional intelligence and being aware of your own emotions and being able to manage your own emotions. That’s a key part of communication,” Palm continued. “If you’re not in a place where you can say something good, then, shut up.”
Paige Hill shared simple but powerful tools for regulating emotions.
“We could talk about breathing exercises and things like that,” Hill said. “But sometimes just stepping away when the emotions get high, like walking out of the room, being alone for a second. There are like other strategies to use, but that’s the simplest.”
Clarence Jones acknowledged walking away isn’t always easy, especially for fathers, but it’s a strength, not a weakness.
“We’re not less of a man for walking away,” he said. “In fact, it it takes a lot of maturity to be able to say, ‘I’m not going to enter into this conversation because I realize the impact that’s going to have on my child.’
“I know that sometimes when you have a lot of stressors on you already, it’s hard to understand that. And you won’t always be successful, but you need to try to be as successful as you can as much as you can whenever you can.”
Breaking Cycles, Strengthening Families
Paige Hill reminded us that trauma can be passed from generation to generation, but so can healing.
“Trauma really shows up in our bodies,” she said. “I am not an expert in trauma therapy, but I know that the trauma our grandparents have, our parents have, does pass through, and it doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. Sometimes, it gets kind of scary when we think about that, but the whole idea goes back to role modeling. Like showing healthy habits and behaviors. If you see your parent reach out for help, maybe that will enable you one day as an older adult or in time of crisis to kind of build those skills and then be able to know that you can do that when you need help.”
Dr. Palm emphasized that parenting isn’t a one-way street. Adults can learn from youth, too.
“That is such an important lesson in many ways,” he said. “As a teacher, I was my best self when I could learn along with my students and from them. Not just, ‘I know it all, I’ll just tell them.’ I’m learning as well.”
Together, We Raise the Future
Clarence Jones, through his work with Hue-Man Partnership, promotes a community health lens on parenting, one that includes an intergenerational and holistic approach to well-being.
“With Hue-Man, we’re involved in the church, we’re involved in the community, we’re involved in barbershops, and we’re talking about all these various things, and we’re talking about the importance of having good communication. We’re talking about being healthy, and being healthy does not just mean getting a shot,” Jones said. “It’s also psychological. It’s also spiritual. It’s also financial.
“And so one of the things and ways in which we try to strengthen the community in those various places is by providing them with accurate and appropriate and honest information, because that’s really the key piece for actually making sure that our kids are safer, is that we give them the appropriate, accurate, and honest information. Now what they do with it is up to them. I always tell people I’m not trying to run your life. I can hardly run my own life, but the reality is that as a practitioner, it’s my responsibility to give you the most accurate information that I can.”
Hill echoed that health is about much more than clinics and hospitals.
“My favorite quote about health is that 80 percent of it comes from outside the doctor’s office,” Hill said. “So only 20 percent of our health and our well-being comes within a hospital or clinic space. What we do in community spaces, in libraries, that’s really what determines how healthy we’re living our lives.”
Parenting With Intention, Equity, and Heart
It takes a village to raise kids today. Understanding what youth are carrying, whether it’s anxiety, pressure, or cultural expectations, is essential to helping them reach their full potential. Empathy and education go hand in hand, and we’re stronger together.
According to Generations United, intergenerational learning has many benefits, including fostering mental and cognitive health, reducing ageism, and building social trust and a sense of belonging for all ages.
Youth have powerful ideas. Episode 12 of “Youth Community Journalism” demonstrates how youth-led conversations can reimagine relationships between adults and young people. And surface the solutions our communities need.
The result? A compelling case for parenting with intention, equity, and heart.
Watch the full episode here, and share with parents and educators.
Episode 12: The Keys to Parenting Today
Support the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation’s Youth Community Journalism Institute. The Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) private foundation. All donations are tax-deductible. Any donation, big or small, is appreciated. You can make a donation here.
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