Gordon Flett

The mattering got lost in the shuffle in part because mattering wasn't the bigger research focus that it is today.

It was only around that time that research on mattering started, started to accumulate.

And, but the thing is, if you talk to individuals, like you talk to educators, you talk to coaches, they know this, they know the value of showing somebody that you care about them.

So it has been a lost opportunity and.

You know, if I was sitting there doing a scorecard, I go, well, unfortunately there was the answer provided 20 years ago.

And nothing systematic or programmatic came out of that.

I could tell.

And by the way, where I tried to trace the origins of where did this come from?

Like, why did it end up on their radar?

As opposed to, you know, being lost in the shuffle back in the early two thousands.

And it came out of research on farm communities and especially for age communities.

And this resonates with me because my daughter, Allison, the psychologist, married a dairy farmer who was the kid across the hall.

So I've talked to people in the community where two of our grandchildren are.

And I remember I was talking to Jeremy's mother, who's co-running the dairy farm with him now.

And I said, you know, the value of kids having a role and a responsibility where they know that their livelihood of the family might depend on it.

Well, farm communities, farm families learned this very early on.

And of course, it was tested back in the Great Depression and Dust Bowl days.

And I said, but it's too bad that we don't find a way to take that focus and emphasis because everybody needs to feel needed.

And when kids have a responsibility, like if you look at the dairy farm that our son-in-law operates with his mother, they're all needing to be involved with this.

Even our daughter, the psychologist, when she's