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Our teens often struggle both academically and socially because they lack a strong sense of self. Peer pressure becomes peer prediction of behavior when teenagers go with the crowd to gain a sense of personal value. Peer attachment can move from healthy friendship to an unhealthy loss of direction and values when teenagers do not see themselves as valuable individuals with strong connections to a whole community. Instead, they may follow peers into negative behaviors including drug and alcohol consumption, stealing, lying, disrespectful attitudes towards adults and society, and even violence. Authors Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, in Hold Onto Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers, show us the problems of peer orientation and what we must do as adults to provide a caring "village of attachment" to help teenagers re-orient themselves to their families and to their society.
But the missing piece in the larger puzzle for most teens, and some adults, is figuring out their roles, or how they best fit into the larger community. A sense of personal value rests with the individual, but derives from recognition of how the individual relates to and fits into the larger community. Children do not usually question their role because it is obvious: They belong to their parents and their role is to be children who grow and learn. Teenagers, on the other hand, transition into viewing themselves as community members with future adult roles and responsibilities. Because our society does not dictate these roles, they begin to look inside themselves for a sense of direction. When they have trouble with introspection and contemplation of choices or with finding the particular strengths or gifts that could guide their future roles in society, teens flounder.
In traditional societies, many mechanisms helped teens find their future roles. In some societies, even today, birth into a particular family may dictate future work and even whom a person may marry. In most societies in the past, transitioning to adult roles happened in a natural context of farm work or training for professions that had been part of the family for generations, as well as earlier marriages, and a stronger sense of community. Community expectations that teens as young as 14 would be ready to assume more adult roles directed teens' experiences, and religious and social rites of passage clarified these expectations for most people.
While contemporary society in the United States has let go of many of these traditional expectations and practices, it has not replaced them with anything solid, aside from the most general expectations that young adults will get a driver's license, vote, work somewhere, pay taxes, and register for the draft if they are male. What is lacking is a sense of specific roles for the unique contributions that each individual can make. As adults, we must do a better job of providing guidance and assistance to teenagers as they try to figure out how to fit into the larger community. If our teenagers have a vision of how they can both belong to their community and responsibly devote their energy to enhancing community life in the future, they will be happier, more stable, and less likely to succumb to pressures from outside themselves.
Help Them Find a Calm Center
Our teenagers often lack quiet time to reflect on their lives and to find their own sense of direction. Calendars full of afterschool activities, long school days, and busy social schedules fill our teenagers' daily lives. In the past, farm chores after school allowed plenty of time for reflection. Now, working at fast food restaurants or other hectic jobs fill teen brains with exhausting details and do not encourage peaceful contemplation of life's possibilities.
In addition, the technological revolution often overloads any remaining free time with Internet surfing, electronic games, phone calls, text messaging, and endless sources of visual and audio entertainment. There is little time in the day to just think. Whereas most parents today grew up in an era with fewer of these distractions, our teens may not know any differently unless we take the time to show them. As parents, we are role models and guides and we must take on this role with passionate commitment if we are to help our teenagers thrive. In order to help them find a calm center, most of us need to start with ourselves and find our own calmer center, providing ourselves with a time and a place for peaceful contemplation.
We can provide a variety of times and places to center ourselves in the midst of our daily lives. By setting aside a room in the house as a "quiet space" without electronic devices, or by taking a few minutes each day to exercise, practice yoga or simply walk around our neighborhood, we signal to our children that peaceful, calm relaxation and contemplation is important. As we model this practice for them, we also can lead the way for them to achieve it themselves. We can offer to help them find a special quiet place in the house just for thinking. We also can offer to help teenagers figure out ways to reach that calm, centered place through exercise that appeals to them, whether walking, biking, hiking, swimming, or something else. We can set aside some time to discuss their busy schedule with them and whether they need to make more time for themselves. We can offer to buy an album of peaceful music that lends itself to relaxing time for contemplation. And we can learn to leave them alone when they are thinking, saving our own comments, reminders, and questions for later.
Sometimes, however, adults and teenagers alike may find themselves so overwhelmed that they need a real retreat to find the calm, quiet place inside where they can think about their lives and the choices they are making. Taking a family vacation, or even a one-on-one parent-teen weekend, with quiet time in mind, can be a gift for more than just the teenagers. This type of retreat must be different from the high energy vacations planned around visiting relatives, strenuous sight-seeing, or busy activities such as visiting theme parks or ski resorts. A cabin in the woods with local hikes, a cottage on a lake with a couple of boats, or even house-sitting at a remote country house offer lots of possibilities for peace and quiet. When our teens appear to be hitting a wall mentally or reaching a low point in valuing themselves, or seem unable to find a sense of direction, this kind of timeout from hectic daily schedules may provide just the respite they need.
Observe Natural Strengths and Gifts
Every individual on the planet has natural strengths and gifts. Although more obvious in a Beethoven or Picasso, our teenagers have strengths and gifts that become clearer to us and to them if we take the time to look. One teenager may show unusual compassion and ability to communicate with pets. Another may sing along to the radio with perfect pitch, suggesting musical ability. Others may show aptitudes in academic subjects or sports, in getting along with other people, leadership, public speaking, or acting, even if we first observe it in a less promising behavior such as imitating the neighbors or family members.
Each strength can lead to adult work opportunities that give individuals a way to contribute to their community. With the right adult encouragement, teenagers can become veterinarians, musicians, scholars, athletes, coaches, actors, and even mayors or legislators. But in order for many teens, especially those who already feel discouraged or do not value themselves enough, to find these strengths in themselves, we as parents and adults in the community must do three things. We must:
Discover Their Personal Passions
Perhaps the most important, and most difficult, step we must take as parents is to hold back and let our teenagers make the final decisions about the directions they will take in their lives, providing these are positive directions. Most teenagers have strengths and gifts in more than one area, and they, and only they, have the best insight into which of these areas they can remain committed to over a long period of time. A teenager with a gift for languages but who prefers biology should be allowed to pursue the field for which he or she has the most passion. Perhaps she will become a doctor who remembers Latin and Greek medical terminology better than others! A teenager who sings well but really loves working with children may become a teacher who uses music to enhance her teaching. During the last years of high school, teenagers make important decisions about pursuing, or not pursuing, their interests. If our households are too authoritarian, they may lack the self-assurance to pursue their passions in the face of different guidance from us.
As parents and community members, we have to allow these young adults the space to discover their passions themselves and give them the encouragement they deserve. If we do, we will find that they readily become valuable and contributing members of our community in the years to come. They will discover their own unique roles and, knowing their relationship to their communities, will be able to find their own happiness within them.
REFERENCES:
"Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community" Berry, Wendell. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993. Insightful essays about our responsibilities for building community.
"Hold Onto Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers" Neufeld, Gordon and Gabor Mate. New York: Random House, 2006.