Teens Talk Amongst Themselves

10.30.2010

I find it interesting that, although I very much enjoy teaching junior high school students, I can’t imagine myself being a parent of a teenager. In a controlled environment, I try to make the lessons interesting and to generate discussion but take me outside of that controlled environment and I’m helpless. What do you talk to them about? How do you relate to them? I wonder these things because teens look at adults as an “enemy” no matter how “cool” you think you are.

There’s a woman I know whose daughter is a freshman at the high school I attended and, on occasion, I inquire at how she’s adjusting. This mom is super cool and she expressed how distraught she is that her daughter pushes her away and speaks to her in hurtful ways. It underscored the memories I had from when I was a teen and how convinced I was that I would do things differently and/or that I’d be such a cool parent that my kid would never think some of the thoughts that I had when I didn’t get my way.

But alas, this isn’t the case and it feeds into the post that I had the other day. A parent puts so much of themselves and their lives into raising a kid only to endure a period of time where all of that will appear to mean nothing to the kid. There should be a support group for parents with teens.

So I continue to wonder… I get along with teens really well in the classroom and I feel privileged to see their minds expand and the lightbulbs go off but I don’t know if I’d be able to carry this same kind of interest outside of the classroom, even with my own kid. I know to a parent that might sound silly and stupid because, hey, the kid is your kid so you’d know his/her interests, likes/dislikes, etc. But what happens when your kid stops talking to you?