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| Sunday, 25 August 2002 |
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We've also been told that no one ever really forgets the turbulence of their own teen years. So it would be helpful if sometimes parents and oldsters did one of those retrospective things and touched base with those currently caught up in the chaos and change - us teenager. Indeed, having a purposeful conversation with today's teenagers should be required of every person over the age of 30. Listen to some of our woes: *Mothers tells us to be more responsible, but then when we try to do something - like cook dinner - they are so critical of how we do things that they wind up martyring themselves and chasing us out of the kitchen. *Parents pretend to listen to us but they don't, really don't listen to our opinions. * Moms and dad are always telling us not to be jealous and not to want so many material things, but we don't see them doing that. *But what bothers us most of all, more than anything, is a feeling that they were 'not needed' by either our family or the larger community. Simply put, we have never experienced the sense of self-worth that comes from knowing our contributions to the larger groups are both important and necessary. *We would like to help our parents... around the house, in the garden, with the marketing... But often the say it's easier just to do the stuff themselves and just shut us out. More often than not, our wish to help reaches beyond family. We are concerned about the families affected by the drought in Hambantota, the displaced living in refugee camps, the state of the economy, the recession, unemployment, children in trouble. Within every teenager is this thing called idealism. Of course its lying dormant now, just waiting to be tapped, giving credence to Psychiatrist Robert Cole's description of adolescence. He said adolescence was the time when, paradoxically, we are most capable of both sacrifice and selfishness. Adults may claim that nowadays, it is the selfishness that is in evidence, that is what draws their attention to us. They might even says article after article details the boredom, greediness and lack of direction evident among us teenagers. That may be so. But in accepting it do you ever pause to consider why we are selfish and greedy and board and why we seem to be particularly undirected. Let us tell you why. As indicated in a recent study, children help out less at home than every before. Why? Because few parents ask us to pitch in. And, you want to know something else? The better-educated the parents, the less we are asked to help with the household chores. Another example is the controversy that springs up whenever the idea of community service is connected with public education. Requiring students to participate in meaningful service to the larger community is opposed by many parents and teachers for various reasons: too much paperwork, too much time taken away from 'real' education, too costly, too unproductive given the fact that, many of us don't want to do 'mandatory volunteerism'. Of course many of us don't want to be forced to learn math or grammar either. But in these areas, you hold your ground and ask us to be 'mandatory students'. So why not volunteerism? That's however by the way, for the real question is: Why? Why do we so often become part of the bored and the restless when we enter adolescence? Could it, possibly, just possibly be that you as parents, have bestowed upon us the curse of high hope and low expectations? Of many privileges and few responsibilities? Moms and dads, in case you don't know it, people who learn the art of connecting to the larger community are made, not born. They are brought along by adults who care enough to set free the idealism that lies coiled waiting to be sprung in every young person. So please, free us and guide us into being better people of the future. -Teen Spirit |
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| Produced by Lake House |
Being a teenager is a wonderful thing. Or so everybody keeps telling
us. The age of adolescence, we are told, and frequently at that, bring
with it many good things. Things like... well... increased independence,
close friendships, relaxed curfews, romance (Wowee) and wild hopes for the
future, to name just a few. But, almost in the same breath, we are also
told that it can also bring, as any survivor of adolescence is expected to
know, some not-so-good things - chief among them an identity crisis and
what the world expects from us.
