If We Spoke...
The Voices, Issues and Hidden Insides of Today’s Teens
By Seth Rockman
SMASHWORDS EDITION
*****
PUBLISHED BY:
Seth Rockman on Smashwords
If We Spoke...
Copyright 2012 by Seth Rockman
A friend asked me why I needed to write this book... and the answer came to me instantly. I needed to write this book because of “the look.” The look I’ve seen at some point on every teenagers face I’ve ever known that says simply... “please, see me.”
You’re a parent.
You’re a teacher.
You’re a counselor, a family member, some other professional or a friend.
You may even be a teenager yourself.
You know, care about, or are responsible in some way for the growth of an adolescent. You’re frustrated, concerned, disappointed, confused or scared... and these feelings, or some other feeling is compelling you to look for insight, guidance and support. You want to, or feel that you need to understand young people better than you do. You may even feel like if you don’t learn how to have some influence over them soon, danger will soon find it’s way into their lives.
If We Spoke... is not like other books about teenagers. Its design is not to give you answers (though you most likely want answers) because there are no simple answers when it comes to relating to or trying to understand teenagers. Instead, this book will stir in you the skills you will need to interpret and attend to your own relationships. If We Spoke... will enable you to understand the unique texture of the teenager in your life and it will empower you to manage the distinct chemistry that exists between you... and them.
Curiosity promotes connection... and connection allows for influence.
Critical thinking allows for understanding... and understanding builds trust.
There is no magic.
There are no cures.
There is no one map and there are no foolproof 7 steps to follow.
There is however hope, and your hopes for strengthened connections and increased influence will become realities if you can simply remain curious and thoughtful in all of your interactions. Too often do adults fall in love with their own wisdom, life experiences and authority. In reality, it’s our humility and our ability to be present in the moments we’re interacting with our kids that will allow us to have the most influence.
This book isn’t filled with useless “fluff”. It’s filled with insights that will lead you to strategies that will maximize the likelihood that your words get heard and that your care is felt.
Read the narratives.
Read the suggestions about how to use this book.
Hear the voices of teens in the words you read describing to you their thoughts, motivations, needs and emotions.
Think... about your own roles, goals and experiences...
Feel... your confusions, your fears, your hopes and your determination...
Then engage the young people in your lives.
PROLOGUE
Whatever your reasons for reading this book. Whatever your relationship to a teenager. You want to understand... and you want to have influence. Connecting to a young person is like picking a lock by feel and sound. You put your ear to the safe, you turn the knob and listen and feel, and when you feel the click, you change directions... until the next click. In time, after enough changes in direction and enough clicks... the lock opens and you have access. Young people are exactly like this. We want access and we need connection, but to have access, we have to listen and feel for the moments when it's time to change our direction, or our approach. In time, our interactions with the young people in our lives lead to the moments of influence and growth... but only if we can learn to read the very subtle cues they give us. We need to know when to push, when to pull, and when to be still. We need to know when to challenge, when to hold accountable, when to nurture and when to accept... and when we choose our approaches correctly, and move with the interaction thoughtfully, eventually, we’ll have our influence, and we’ll witness their growth.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- we hope you read these words and...
- power is a HUGE issue for us...
- we do feel hopeful...
- it’s not an “anger management” issue...
- emotion always drives our behavior...
- if you want us to take responsibility, it’s all about your approach…
- cell phones, laptops, texting, sexting, facebook, myspace etc, etc, etc…
- we care more about how we look than who we are...
- you tell us we can tell you anything or go to you at any time… but…
- the word "depression" scares you? imagine how we feel...
- you say gang... we say family...
- our parents weren’t born here... but we were raised here ...
- if you give us a bullet...
- is it a reason?... or an excuse?
- preach and lecture less… and ask more questions and listen
- if you immediately oppose our arguments and explanations...
- please teach us about quiet confidence...
- punishments just piss us off...
- be funny, or at least try to be...
- lowering your expectations of us will only keep us down...
- we know your high expectations are for our own good...
- how are we supposed to see a future?
- we sleep around...
- just because we cut ourselves... doesn’t mean we’re crazy or weak...
- the movies, the t.v., the video games, the music and the magazines...
- we’ll do wrong, defy and follow the crowd despite your wisdom...
- do you fear us?
- whether you like it or not... some of us are gay...
- hypocrisy might be your biggest obstacle...
- as young men, we’re taught that...
- we know how annoying it is when we tell you “we don’t care”...
- you’re always telling us to lead and not to follow...
- please, give us permission to play like children...
- it’s not that we want to be dead...
- if you give us your pity...
- we’ll get into fights over “respect”...
- why won’t you set limits or say “no” more often?
- we don’t underachieve because we’re “lazy”...
- we’re the adopted ones...
- if it’s your job, be a professional, if you’re a parent, be our parent…
- break your own cycles… don’t rely on us to break them for you...
- this idea of “self-esteem” has gotten blown way out of proportion...
- sometimes you’re going to have to just let us fall on our faces…
- if something’s “normal”, do we have to just accept it?…
- “identity and labels” mean a lot to us…
- we’re the ones from divorced, or one parent families...
- too many choices and options…
- do you really want to know why we smoke weed? or how to get us to stop?
- a lot of us do actually have eating disorders and body image issues...
- we’ve got comfort zones just like you… now make us leave them
- drama and unhealthy relationships do excite us…
- sometimes we’ll need a hug, sometimes we’ll need a kick in the...
- HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
- FROM ADOLESCENT, TO COUNSELOR... TO AUTHOR
- DISCLAIMER
we hope you read these words and...
feel something. whether you’re a mom, a dad, a sibling, a relative, a teacher, a professional, or a kid yourself. we hope you read through this book and really think about us. and not just as responsibilities, but as kids in this world with you. we hope you feel curiosity and worry. we hope you feel love and fear. we hope you feel excited by the possibilities of new connections with us and greater influence... and we hope you use these feelings to drive you to talk with us more and to listen to us with deeper patience and curiosity. we don’t want you to read these words and label us, judge us or feel any kind of certainty. we don’t need you to use what we say to “figure us out”, analyze us or diagnose us. we just want more adults engaging us (even when we tell you we don’t). and we just want you to read some of our thoughts about the lives we’re living. for a lot of us, it seems our parents and teachers have gotten so frustrated and confused by our behaviors and tired of our excuses, that they no longer know how to talk with us or what to do to help us. but we’re not just your responsibility, we’re also children... deserving of care, understanding and hope. and we’re not just statistics, we’re also students, needing our teachers to stay relentless in their pursuit of our education. the words we’ve written for you aren’t absolute truths for all of us... but they are the truths for many of us, and maybe even some of your sons, daughters, clients or students. we hope you read these words and talk about them with your colleagues. we want you to bring our words into your classrooms, your counseling sessions and your homes. we need you to bring them into your workshops, your trainings and to your spouses. and above all, we hope you take in our words, and feel less afraid, and more confident to address the issues that make you uncomfortable... because we need you to be direct and open with us. we hope you read these words and re-connect with the uncertainties you felt and the secrets you kept when you were our age. we want you to think about why you parent us the ways that you do and how you can manage your classrooms differently. and we hope with every fiber of who we are, that you read our words, think of a child in your life, and feel for them. feel your anger. feel your fears. feel your confusion, disappointment and exasperation. feel your love, your concern, your faith and your hope... and than feel inspired to reach out to us and to keep trying. because we desperately need you to keep trying... more than we’ll ever tell you to your face, and more than we want to admit.
power is a HUGE issue for us...
in fact, if you had to choose one reason to explain why we do what we do, the feeling of powerlessness would be a great choice. our sense of our own power drives most of our behaviors that make you crazy or cause you to worry. we fight to feel more powerful. we defy rules and authority to prove that we’re more powerful than when we were younger. we lie to maintain power, we cheat to keep power and we’ll even use drugs or engage in risky sexual behavior to numb the powerlessness we often feel. for us, feeling powerful means that we’re capable of having influence on our own lives and dictating the terms of our own lives. when we feel powerless, we feel at the mercy of others and we feel weak, feeble or invisible. we ask that you keep in mind that because we are younger, there’s an automatic powerlessness that we feel pretty much all the time. parents, teachers, bosses, older siblings and older family members are all more powerful than us... which means we’re technically at their mercy and have to meet their expectations and put aside our own needs. being younger also means that we are sometimes physically smaller, which also feeds our sense of powerlessness. if we’re female, gay or from a race or ethnicity OTHER than white, this can also feed our feelings of powerlessness. being younger also usually means that our vocabularies aren’t as developed, which means that when we’re trying to communicate with people who are older, we’re usually frustrated because we can’t explain ourselves as well... and this frustration also feeds our sense of powerlessness. unfortunately, a lot of the people we know, and most of the media we consume glorifies unhealthy ways of gaining power. the more violent and aggressive characters in movies, t.v. shows, video games and our music all look and sound more powerful. even in our school hallways amongst our peers, there’s constant competition for power. if someone gossips negatively about us, they’re trying to steal our power... so we in turn gossip about them to try to regain the power they “took” from us. you see, we don’t yet realize that just because people try to “take” our power from us, this doesn’t mean we have to give up our power. and we haven’t yet learned that to stay powerful, all we really need to do is think before we react. if we have older siblings who make us feel small, we may go to school, identify someone smaller than us, and try to do to them what our siblings do to us... all just to find a little more power. sadly, we aren’t taught nearly as often that we can feel powerful by picking others up, or by succeeding in school, or by making the tough choices that are healthy, safe and future-oriented. we’re not taught that true, lasting power comes from displays of hard work, character and dignity... and that the power we feel by living dangerously or aggressively lasts only for the few moments we’re displaying them, jeopardizes our futures and safety, and ultimately leads to us losing a lot more power.... and freedom. so when you’re banging your heads against walls trying to figure out why we did the illogical thing we did, ask yourself if it might be a power issue driving us... and then ask us... and then listen... and then ask... and then listen... and... well, you get the point.
we do feel hopeful...
despite the negativity you see on our faces, see in our actions and hear from our mouths. we can understand how confused the adults in our lives must feel when the kids they know seem to give up, back down or stop caring. but despite all the shows of negativity, we do want great things for ourselves, and we do hope for great things in our lives. we do hope for safety, and joy, and connection, and growth. we do want lightness, and laughter and adventure and love. but many of us just keep these hopes buried out of sight. you see, we pay more attention than you think. we read news articles and watch t.v. reports about the violence all over the world... and in our neighborhoods and schools. we listen to the tales about the end of the world coming, and we’re affected by the statistics talking about how today’s kids are worse off than kids back in the day. and we are afraid of never knowing what it feels like to have our brightest hopes come true. but despite the issues in the world that blanket people’s hopes and put fear in our hearts... we do still hope. albeit silently. for us, hoping feels risky. to hope out loud means to risk disappointment and even embarassment. and being heartbroken when our wishes don’t come true is something we try desperately to avoid. so we silently hope. and we endure the disappointment alone when we’re let down. many of us have adopted the notion that hoping is a sign of weakness, and accepting reality, even when it’s an unfair reality, is a sign of strength (hence the popularity of the expression “it is what it is”)... which is what many of you see from your children. if you look at us (and we mean... really look at us), you may see in us resignation and indifference, and wearing hardened looks that children should not have to wear... but this is not our whole story. this is only the mask we wear to survive a world that feels overwhelming and scary. no matter how tough we may try to seem, our insides still crave the hope that children crave. we hope for innocence and simple joys... and for beautiful things and places that for us right now, seem to live only in our imaginations. so for now, and for these few teenage years we have, give us permission to keep hoping, and if you see us drifting too far away from hope and toward cynicism or bitterness... do something to stir in us that feeling of possibility that only comes with wanting... and hoping... for the best.