Trouble With Teens
Shifting Your Teens Attitude, Means Shifting Yours
The problem is that our young are being told what to do and how to do it rather than nurtured towards their own unique calling. And so, they, the youth, don’t truly feel needed because they often feel they are simply living their family’s life or doing what society tells them, rather than their own.
And psychologically this makes sense; When we are born the primary part of our brain to develop is the emotional brain. That is because it facilitates bonding and attachment to our caregivers, which we need to survive. In others words we need to feel connected to our caregiver in order to survive and feel safe. If ever there is a perceived threat or ”something happens” to this feeling of connection, our psyche interprets this as something is wrong, and the only way it knows how to explain this is that there must be something wrong with me. That is because the cognitive part of our brain is not fully wired yet and our prefrontal cortex is not developed enough to process things. So, we make it personal. And a child will always sacrifice themselves in some way to preserve the connection to their caregivers. Who I am, as am, is not good enough, not important, bad, etc. I'm going to need to be something else to get that love and connection back.
In order to get that connection and love back we develop strategies and behaviors. We try behavior A it doesn’t work, Behavior B, it doesn’t work, Behavior C, Bingo it works. Who I am is not good enough, so I will become Behavior C.
This is where our unique wounding’s start and the truth is all parents wound their children psychologically. There is simply no way we can meet a child’s every need but trying to create an open family system as opposed to a closed family system is a step in the right direction.
Open vs Closed Family Systems
Open Family Systems
Open Family Systems are generally close and healthy. People feel free and have a sense of community. Pressures from outside the family, the opinions of others and societal tends do not modify the family’s direction. These families are internally driven. Relationships are self-sustaining because each person, to differing degrees, dependent upon level of maturity, understands that every person in the family desires, at one and the same time, both community (togetherness) and separateness (individuality).
It is within the movement, the wrestling, the imbalance, the struggle that comes from within healthy families, that each person is empowered to be his or her own person. The freedom enjoyed by healthy people embraces the family member who, for whatever reason, chooses to be less involved with the family. Ironically such families can appear to be unhealthy because they welcome diversity. In other words, in an open family system a person can look, believe, feel and speak very differently than everyone else in the family without having to face negative consequences like judgments, disconnection or even cut-off.
Closed Family Systems
Closed Family Systems are “close” in a different way. They believe uniformity and control keeps people safe and together. Togetherness is all-important and there is often a sense of disapproval between members of the family, often discernable when someone in the family will not “toe the line,” live in the family “box” or enjoy the closeness. In such families, people are “overly” close. “Closeness” (uniformity, togetherness) is insisted upon, even demanded. People feel cornered through an intricate play of rejection, judgment and “love.”
Here, rather than relationships being self-sustaining, they are kept alive by a multitude of “musts” and “shoulds” and hidden rules played from an obscure idea of what constitutes a relationship and a family. In such families there are frequent tensions, often from an unidentifiable source. A person can easily get the feeling that they are walking a tight rope of being “in” or “out.” These families are reactive and togetherness is covertly coerced or overtly forced. In these families, fusion is mistaken for love and expressing the natural and God-given desire for individuality is regarded as betrayal.
Ironically, these families can appear healthy to outsiders because of the appearance of togetherness, while some of the people within the family might be figuratively dying from the pressures of conformity. In other words, in a Closed Family System a person can only look, feel, believe and speak differently than everyone else in the family according to the guidelines, hidden or obvious, in the family. Anything else might result in overt expulsion, a subtle shunning, or covert distancing like emotional withdrawal
By adolescence a young person’s developmental imperative is to individuate from the family system and starts to have a strong sense that they want to be needed in the world. Meaning they want to know that their life has value and meaning and it’s a huge disappointment, when they start to feel otherwise. Which they will feel; if they aren’t nurtured to find their own unique self and get recognized for who they are.
A lot of the trouble young people get into actually is an attempt to find out who they are outside of the family system, and it’s quicker to find out when you’re in trouble. The reason being is it tests the value system instilled in us from our families but also it allows us to test the edges of what we don’t know, rather than sleep in the certainty of what we do know.
This a poem that speaks directly to that by Emily Dickinson:
The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity --
As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place --
Not yet suspected -- but for Flash --
And Click -- and Suddenness.
A young person is like a landscape waiting to be hit by lightning so that the hidden part of them suddenly becomes visible. That’s why they get in trouble; they are trying to attract lightning so that they can be seen. The task as parents or mentors is to receive them in that trouble rather than punishing them for it. This to me is one of the greatest tragedies of modern times. Instead of punishment we need to learn to teach them through the trouble instead of condemning them and disconnecting from them. When we do that, the message we send it that you aren’t needed or valued, and it is the exact opposite message we need to try to send.
Mistakes will happen, that’s a fact, and real teaching happens when mistakes are made.
In today’s society if a mistake is made, we tell them they’ve done the wrong thing, yet when a mistake happens, we are given valuable information into what we need to be teaching. It gives those who are paying close enough attention insight into what they need to learn and so in that sense it’s an important rite of passage to make mistakes and should be honored.
There is an old saying that says; “Calm seas make poor sailors.” If we are to learn to find ourselves, we are headed for rough waters. That’s where we discover what our true calling is. Another way to say that is that, how we find our individuality is by getting into trouble.
So really, the trouble young people get into actually serves a purpose and so if we pay attention, we can get a sense of that purpose. Now the trick here of course is to help them find the right kind of trouble to get into rather than the wrong kind.
This is where most families freeze. For some reason, perhaps because it calls for more than what a parent can give, parents of struggling youth often want someone else to “fix” the problem. It’s important to understand our own limitations as parents and be honest about that, however the parent is the very best resource for their child.
Vulnerability is the key to deep healing.
This means we need to start to talk about our worries, fears, pains and become real with each other in an accountable way. This is a learned process and getting help with a trained professional can be extremely beneficial.
All that said sometimes we have to watch our children hit rock bottom and be there with loving arms, not condemning them for what they have done but inviting what they have learned and nurturing that.