Ragging on teenagers

Ragging on teenagers has become even more noticeable this year. Some of the most aggressive comments I have heard come from the middle and upper-middle classes, who are proving the Beatles right. Money can’t buy kids love. And hey, I am not pointing fingers. I did all I could to buy my daughter everything I could afford, hoping she would never have to experience what I did as a child. It backfired. Remind me to tell you the story of searching the entire west coast for all of the Power Rangers one Christmas.

I also notice that privileged parents too often seem to regard their adolescent offspring as though they were holdings in the family stock portfolio: Either they perform or they’re out. '

For the last several years, the trend among the well-to-do has been to blame the teenager for everything that goes wrong in the family. Divorce, financial stress, loss of a job, and in once case a parent blamed their child for their plastic surgery going wrong, sating the kid stressed them out so much they did not heal correctly. I can at least say I never blamed my daughter for all the choices I made or for the emotions I struggled with.

Ever since the 1999 Columbine school shooting in Colorado and a rash of books in 2002 that took girls to task for almost everything, a shift started happening.

Forget nurturing; boys were murderers and girls were murderous, and a parent’s best hope was merely to survive until they left home. How sad is that? No matter how bad it seems at home with your child they did not spring full-blown from the belly of some alien monster sent to Earth to drive you towards a complete nervous breakdown. These are children, and they are products of the home environments that are created in which they live. Sometimes we do a great job and sometimes we don't. That is life. We learn as we go. If I knew then what I know now I would have been a much better parent. However, we cannot undo what is done. Some of the mistakes I see are that parents expect their kids to grow up too fast, either because they don’t have time to be responsible parents or, worse, because they are too distracted by their own activities.

Children may be barely into puberty, but they ought to act like adults? We give them things instead of companionship, as though an iPod, a cell phone, a laptop, a video game or a new car were enough to make any child happy and well-behaved. We define “good enough” too narrowly, which may sound familiar to any parent who thinks that the only good university is an Ivy League one. It’s an unfortunate understandable urge that us Baby boomers know too well.

We are part of a population change, facing competition for everything from college admission to Social Security dollars, and we want to make sure our kids will have an advantage. We’re old enough to know that life isn’t fair, yet we scramble for the edge in amusing ways; some parents hold their children back from kindergarten out of genuine concern for their developmental readiness, while others do it as part of a long-term strategy for success, figuring that the extra year’s maturity will translate into better grades. Life is measured in hits and misses, making it far too easy for our children to feel like failures. We set out-of-reach standards of personal behavior; for too many parents, there are no misdemeanors, only felonies. Some frequently punish by turning their backs on their kids– by denying troubled children the very support and affection they probably need. Parents are afraid to be parents. Parents are afraid to take that step of support for fear their child will no longer love them. Parents fear their child getting help and being healthy when they themselves are struggling emotionally. Parents who reject their difficult children fail to recognize that the kids often feel out of control and want a guiding hand.

The middle class may be able to provide all of the good life, but the soulful shell is fairly empty in many cases. Parents condemn members of the helping professions for everything from over medicating to over-diagnosis. In many cases I agree that it has gotten out of hand. Labels are not good and are not needed when dealing with a troubled teen. Not every kid who has a sullen afternoon requires professional help, unless, of course, the parents want a quick fix. And believe me, there is no quick fix. A quick fix is a provocative idea, and a troubling one. However, what was happening in the 1970's with troubled teens is not all that different than what is happening today. Kids today are still thrill-seeking, are still using drugs and drinking, are still sexually active. One girl I recently assisted reminisces about a drug-induced evening when a guy was threatening to kill her with a broken beer bottle if she didn’t have sex with him. She never told her parents abut the party or the experience, and of course she was acting out at home, and yes, she used drugs to deaden the pain of her emotions. She was labeled as a troubled teen.

She isolated from her parents, stayed in her room, spent hours on the computer talking in chat rooms to others about her experience. Did she need help? Yes. Did she get it? Finally, after her emotions went into full blown depression. Three months later her parents had her in treatment.

Just in time. She was planning on suicide. They never knew. They were devastated. Is this a troubled teen? Yes, but not in the way they always seem to get labeled. There is usually a whole lot more going on that parents realize. Parents who respond to escalating problems by cutting ties to their children, makes me wonder: Did these people think they had struck a special deal with God (or whoever their higher power may be) to provide them with easy kids or they’d get to quit their parenting job? And again, not every parent can afford a residential treatment center. Who knows what kinds of help we might still be able to offer the walking wounded, in all age groups, if support programs had not fallen under the budgetary ax time and time again?

And then are those, like Dave Pelzer (A Child Called "it") whose life was so horrific as to almost defy belief. Believe me, it happens every day here in the United States. Dave did not live far from where I lived in Los Altos, California. When I read his book my heart almost stopped.

My own childhood was filled with abuse, fear of being killed on any given day, loss of my adopted mother by suicide when I was 9, sexual abuse by my adopted father, so much pain and rage.

Could I have been labeled a troubled teen? Yes, absolutely. Fortunately there was this part of me that always had eventual hope that the dark world would become clear and I would see light again and feel love. Many troubled teens are a triumph to the human spirit. Many have courage and determination. And many suffer in silence. Life has it's challenges.

Checking out as a parent is not an option.

Troubled Teen Help

Helping Parents Reach Out to Their Troubled Adolescents, Teens and Young Adults