Viewpoint: When young people are taken seriously, they rise

At Delaware’s Youth of the Year event, Rashid Flonnory stood before a room of more than 300 people and spoke with poise.

He talked about his life, then mentioned what helped him move forward: a coaching staff, a playbook and a team. He chose that language himself, worked out over years of practice and people who stayed in it with him.

Young people do not reach that kind of self-knowledge by…