Do you remember when we were teenagers in the 70s?
There is a big difference between being a teenager today and being a teenager back then. Gasoline cost 0.50 cents a gallon, there were no cell phones, no TV, no YouTube, no internet. We would go out to meet our friends at night and spend the summer at our grandparents’ farm. Neighborhood families came together to celebrate the 4th of July and visited each other at Christmas. Life was easier for both our parents and us too.
Today, today everything is different, children are murdered by madmen inside their schools, half the world is at war with its neighbors and we are all at war with drugs, child trafficking and pornography haunt our every moment and the lives of our teenagers. The Internet and social networks have opened their eyes and hearts to the reality of the world in which they live. We were happy children, our worries were getting good grades and getting a date for the party on Saturday.
All teenagers today are aware every minute through their phones, television and the Internet about violence against other children, about death, hunger and disease around them. They lost their innocence long ago watching a child soldier kill people in a war somewhere in Africa, they have seen teenagers like them get needled and shot in their own schools or near their homes.
What is the point of all this, why talk about it? I think it is something that we should keep in mind and keep in our hearts when we talk to our children about their problems. I think it’s something we should think about when one of us, or his friends, falls into the clutches of cocaine or any other drug. It’s something to keep in mind when your son or daughter doesn’t want to go to school because he or she is being bullied. These are different times than the ones we live in, we need to arm ourselves with patience and relearn how to deal with all these issues that are present in our children’s daily lives.
Teens today live in an extremely competitive world, that’s right, competition is all about stupid and hectic stuff, but it’s there and they have to live with it. Who has the best cell phone, or the newest car, the pressure to get drugged or drunk, to have sex, the need to defend and protect themselves, their life is real. Yes, it’s very real and it’s something we didn’t learn to handle, we lived in peace when life was beautiful and friendships were built forever.
Every time a teenager falls into drugs, alcohol, suicide, violence, it’s not just their fault, it’s not just their friends’ fault either. It’s everyone’s fault because we, their parents, don’t have time to talk to them, to try to understand what’s going on in their heads, in their hearts. As parents today, it is our duty not only to listen to them, to watch over them closely, but also to inform ourselves about their realities and the people and things they deal with every day.
Many times when they have done something wrong and we have caught them, the first thing we say to them is: “Yes, I was a teenager too, I know how you feel”. This is not true, we don’t know how it feels to carry the weight of peer pressure like they do, we don’t know how it feels to be exposed and tempted with drugs and alcohol every day at all times. We don’t know what it’s like to find out that your classmates have guns and sell drugs and that the girl sitting next to you was raped and beaten by a group of students you knew. None of my high school friends, or yours, are serving twenty or thirty years in jail for murder, drug dealing, or rape at the age of seventeen.
It is time for us to stop and smell the flowers, the world today is not what it was forty years ago but we are still trying to educate and care for our children as it was. They know more about the world than we will ever know. There is no longer room for lies or excuses, they have seen it all, and many times they have lived it. This is the time when we must desperately try to reach out to them, talk to them, reach out to them, and make great efforts to understand what they are going through every day. You have to be patient, you have to be prepared to listen to everything without judging, give them love and not punishment, they are already being punished by society itself.
It is our duty to make their homes a place of peace, a place where they can open up and talk about their pain, their problems, their doubts and fears. You and I have sat in front of our children and heard stories of things that happened at school or elsewhere that seem so wild and crazy that they don’t register in our minds. We believe they are lying and anger flares and we call them liars and many other things, well many of these stories and excuses are true and they are lived every day. The time has come to arm ourselves with patience and tons and tons of love. It is time that we serve our adolescent children as anchors, as forts where they feel safe away from all the pain and suffering that their world is made of.
Take the time to talk to them for a few minutes every day, ask them about their day, how they are feeling, something happened at school today, anything is good, the point is to work on opening channels of communication that hopefully are not necessary but are they are, they can save your child’s life. Watch TV, learn about social media, get involved with it, ten fifteen minutes you spend every day with your child just talking about what is the best investment you can be making to provide a better and safer way of life. They are the most precious parts of our lives, learn about them, observe them, share with them, soon they will be adults themselves and will go their own ways. Now is the time to establish a true relationship with them, later the opportunity will have passed and it is impossible to reverse the time and consequences of not paying attention when attention was needed.