15 year olds are idiots. But like so are my coworkers. The difference is that 15 year olds have an excuse and might learn from their fuck ups.
Pretty much this. I’ve always tried to treat kids like dumb lil adults, but with more potential!
Bet, I think that’s a really good point and a crucial reminder for some people.
I am gonna need 15 year olds to be 33% less annoying, though, in return. I mean, I was incredibly annoying at 15 and I get it’s hard not to be but goddamn meet me part way here
I used to work with a lot of teens at their first job, and I found that I got along with them really well when I’d tell them that the biggest difference between them and me was simply that I’d been on this rock a few years longer than they have. If you’re 20 and they’re 15, then you’ve experienced 33% more shit than they have.
I told them that I wasn’t gonna tell them what to do with their lives, but I’d offer my own experiences to help them make more informed choices. It’s like with little kids: you can tell them not to do something dangerous, but if you explain why they shouldn’t do it, you’ll get better results. At least with the 15+ crowd, you usually don’t have to worry about them sticking forks into the electrical sockets or something.
Way more than that. Imagine a 5-year-old who has what, a couple of years worth of memories? So by that token, a 7-year-old is twice the age of a 5-year-old, and a 9-year-old is triple, despite not even having hit double the chronological age yet.
And there’s all sorts of disconnects beyond that: a 17-year-old driving cars for at least a year while a 14-year-old has never done so (depending on factors I suppose), and a 20-year-old with multiple years of college or trade school or work under their belt, vs. a 17-year-old who tends to have little to none yet at that point.
And how much have people experienced who joined the armed forces and were deployed somewhere, especially seeing active duty, compared to people who have or will never do thus in their entire lives? A 20-year-old could teach someone 4x older chronologically something, if they had the relevant experiences.
Okay so I went way off on that tangent, but yeah, totally agree! 💯, and even more than 💯 besides 💪.
I don’t think I started sticking metal into electrical outlets until I was 14 or 15…
Bzzzzzaaaap
They will be, it takes time and it takes the mistakes of at least the next ten years to sort it out. Not appreciating that developement simply because it inconveniences you definitely makes you one of those “some people” so take the reminder and give ‘em a little slack.
Frankly, in my experience, the annoyance of a teenager pales in comparison to the annoyance of an array of adults who have had that time to grow and didn’t seem to be capable of using it productively. At least you can work with a kid to figure their shit out, the adult will just kick and scream about nonsense.
“I’m 20 and this is deep”.
Become an actual adult and you will realize how ridiculously difficult it is to take some uneducated teenager’s radicalism with any grain of seriousness and respect. Even if you try to because you remember what it felt like not to be taken seriously, and you don’t want to be that adult…
I’m 35, and I’m perfectly able to engage with the thought process behind the opinion, no matter how radical. All they want is to be treated with respect.
Contrast with “real adults” who e.g. continue to trash the planet because they can’t even think of slightly decreasing the amount by which they enrich themselves. Those I don’t respect. They are the real radicals.
If a 15 year old says “so much good can happen when a few billionaires kick the bucket”, I’m right there with them.
Man, that is not what most 15 year olds are saying. You have an idealized fantasy in your head. Most of them are just spewing obscenities, racism and stupid incel/manosphere shit over discord. Just like we were over IRCs, ventrillo and TeamSpeak.
Most kids are fucking stupid.
I had Climate Change anxiety when I was 15. I’m an adult now and I have crippling Climate Change anxiety and can’t do anything without feeling guilty. I hate the adults that sabotage my education because they decided I had a learning disability. If anyone said problematic shit, it was my conservative history teacher.
Well thank goodness the US just elected a person and party that are totally dedicated to climate change mitigation! And our political process in general is well oiled and poised for real meaningful change! And the American people all acknowledge the existence of the problem and in no way deny it, and are all united in fighting the clear and present danger it poises!
My history teacher would be proud. He wont have to worry about those pesky wealthfare queens or illegal immigrants anymore.
I don’t think the average person on lemmy, with a diagnosed learning disability or other challenges (autism in my case), represent the average opinion of 15 year old children.
Judging by the state of the world, I don’t think the average adult has any right to have a feeling of smug superiority to teenagers. I don’t think there’s really that much difference between average teenagers and average adults.
Adults can be immature, but children cannot be mature.
Greta Thunberg and how Americans react to her proves why mature children in America are a rarity.
Most teenagers I know are leftist, so you’re right in that most aren’t like that, but you’re very wrong about insinuating that I’m wrong.
The type of kids you’re describing is not what “I’m x age and this is deep” is talking about.
That depends entirely on who is speaking.
I’m way over 20 and I wholeheartly disagree with you. It is indeed complicated to educate rebelling teenagers but many adults look down on children, teens and young adults just because of them being younger. That is an acceptable behavior.
Even when struggling to educate someone, it’s not ok to treat someone like they are worth nothing. Younger human are human being and deserve to be treated as so.“I’m the cool mom …”
Isn’t that completely missing the point of this post? 15-20 is old enough to have some experience, opinions, thoughts, hopes, fears, dreams, etc.
I thought like this when I was 15.
Then in my twenties looking back at how I acted when I was a teen I thought “I was really dumb as a kid, I wish I had more supervision from a responsible adult.”
Now in my thirties looking back at how I acted when I was in my twenties I think “I was really dumb as a kid, I wish I had more supervision from a responsible adult.”
Kids today deserve the option to delete everything about the from the Internet at some point in their 20s. No one needs video evidence of that phase.
My bro has a rule: no public photos of his kids, ever. Shared to family, privately, only.
They’re just not old enough to sign away their privacy.
No photos should be the default until they turn twenty. It’s too easy to fuck up or be taken advantage of.
Supervision doesn’t have to be patronizing or demeaning. A 15 year-old isn’t dumb anymore, merely ignorant and impulsive which does tend to make them shitheads but that’s kind of a separate problem.
Most adults are shockingly bad at understanding and explaining their own thoughts and rationales, including to other adults. So when interacting with a teenager, they either throw their hands up or fall back on “shut up and do as I say” as one would with a 5 year-old.
That’s where teens can be failed really badly by the adults around them because they are at an age where unlike children they are mostly/fully equipped to understand “adult” advice, and will not blindly follow orders anymore. But they also need way more advice, guidance and explanation than an actual adult. I think that’s where the post is getting at. Don’t forget that teens are kids, but don’t treat them like they are subhuman or lacking in agency.
they are mostly/fully equipped to understand “adult” advice, and will not blindly follow orders anymore
That’s why they can’t sign for bank loans until much later?
Understanding something at the level needed for a conversation is one thing, having the capacity or experience to really understand the significance of the thing and use that deeper understanding reliably for decision making is something more, and does take longer to develop.
being dumb and worthy of respect are not mutually exclusive.
Sounds all well and good until you don’t have any responsible adults around you
I’m in my late 20, I was failed as a child and teen. Not because I had too much freedom, but because the adults did not treat me with respect, like a person, and were not responsible. I mean, my parents were straight up abusive, but it’s not like anyone else helped
I would have unironically been better off alone
I was dumb, frustrated, angry, inexperienced, foolish, and worst of all, I was often right. I was dealing with some pretty heavy shit as a 15 year old. I had just started seriously questioning my gender. I was struggling with mental illness that was starting to cripple me because I didn’t know how to cope and couldn’t explain it well enough. My grades were slipping from those two things. Oh and I was starting to realize my parents didn’t love or like each other as my family began crumbling. And as a young millennial it was starting to become apparent I was about to inherit a world that wasn’t doing so great.
And at the same time I was a fucking moron. I couldn’t express what was wrong and if you’d asked me any of those things I’d’ve probably denied most of them. I straight up did deny the first two, knowingly lying on a psychiatric exam.
I needed the room to try and fail. But I also needed to be shown that what I was going through wasn’t what life was supposed to be like. I wish I could go back and tell my teenage self the words to express her needs, to slap her into studying (and slip her some Wellbutrin), and to reassure her that the lessons she’s learning from her parents’ marriage will provide her with equal measures of understanding necessary for her own happy marriage and fuel for therapy.
And yeah I try to apply those lessons to the teenagers I know
Wait until your 40s
Maybe then I can find a responsible adult to look after me?
Man… The amount of comments saying that kids are dumb at fifteen and I didn’t know what I was doing at fifteen are all falsely equating respect with success and knowledge. Kids literally don’t know what their doing because they are figuring it out. They’re not dumb, they have a lot to learn. And most want to.
Kids need respect for being who they are. You give most kids real respect and watch them do everything they can to live up to it. They need real connection and mentors. When you give high support then you can set high expectations.
The difference is you knowing that you don’t know, and an average teenager feeling like they know it all, while they know about as much as nothing.
You’ve got it all backwards. Adults are the ones who think they know everything. Don’t mistake confidence for arrogance. If you raise a kid right, then they’ll confidently do dumb shit, knowing they’ll learn from it and you’ll keep them safe. That’s healthy development. But you look at the adults who never take risks, never consider different ideas, refuse to learn tech or politics because they think they won’t get it. That’s low self esteem, but it’s also a form of arrogance. The arrogant belief that you are already the best you can possibly be. That you have no growing left to do. Even if you think you’re the dumbest person alive, thinking you’re the smartest version of yourself is arrogance.
It’s all the Dunning-Kruger effect. We are cursed to continually fail on the side of you don’t know what you don’t know.
I had this idea in my teens that we really needed a common sense brigade. Small groups of people jury style that would just go from place to place and say hey that’s stupid Don’t do that. Because I could see right from wrong I assumed that we just needed a bunch of people that could also see right from wrong to go around and lead the idiots to reasonable decisions. It was very easy for my 15-year-old mine to see black and white everywhere. It’s all good versus evil and smart versus stupid.
Many decades later, I know grasp that most of the world’s problems are because people tries to fit everything into black and white.
Kids need respect
no, kids need understanding. respect is earned. the difference between the two is trust.
Respect is granted for just being human. That can be erode if they violate core social norms, but when respect is given trust is given back. They then give the effort that results in learning.
respect for life is not respect for the individual.
trust must exist before respect is given. let me give you an example.
a cop pulls you over, you were not breaking any laws that you were aware of. the officer walks up and asks you if you know why you were pulled over. you tell him no and he proceeds to tell you that you were speeding.
you know this was a lie since you had speed control on.
did you respect the officer before or after he pulled you over?
did your level of respect change before or after he lied to you?
in my case, I never respected the officer. I understand that he’s doing a job and will help however I can. However, after he lies to me I could never trust him, thus I could never respect him.
my point is, In order for respect to exist, trust must be present first. I don’t trust strangers, even if they’re in positions of public trust.
You are right though. Respect and trust correlate to each other and fortify each other. The more trust you have in someone, the more respect you have for them, the more respect you have for someone, the more trust you have in them.
I can still trust somebody, but I can still not respect them. that relationship cannot be flipped around.
I don’t respect cops to begin with. If I didn’t know they were a cop then I would respect them.
because you don’t trust them, right?
I do not
Teenagers are in development of becoming an individual. They may have personalities, but they haven’t tempered them for society yet. That tempering process is through human connections. I’d argue the best outcomes come through respect, patient connections with adults who demonstrate composure and allow them to grow that composure.
I don’t know what you’re suggesting other than with holding respect.
Teenagers are in development of becoming an individual. They may behave personalities, but they haven’t tempered them for society yet.
that’s exactly my point. I understand they have to be tempered by society. Once they have achieved this level of tempering it’s respectable for the amount of effort they put in. some people though, never get through that tempering and I cannot respect them. I understand they may have social anxiety or some other reason, but I can’t trust them like others that have so I can’t respect them like others. there are other ways to respect though.
I’d argue the best outcomes come through respect, patient connections with adults who demonstrate composure and allow them to grow that composure.
IMO that’s not respect, thats understanding. If you respected them, you would at least seem them as equals to yourself and treat them as an equal. You understand they aren’t at the same level as yourself and give them some leeway to “feel it out” and find their own path. this includes supporting them when they make mistakes or explaining how to avoid the mistakes in the future.
I don’t know what you’re suggesting other than with holding respect.
respect is a gift given from one individual to another. it signifies the trust one has in the other. A child respects a parent because they trust the parent. when the trust is broken, the respect dies with it. infact, respect of an adult is important to the development of a young mind and is a mechanism used to emulate the adult. if you respect someone, you might want to try being like them, even when you’re an adult.
so in short, I disagree that respect should be given automatically. It’s earned through nurturing relationships and built on trust.
Once they have achieved this level of tempering it’s respectable for the amount of effort they put in.
that’s not respect, thats understanding. If you respected them, you would at least seem them as equals to yourselfI think the desire to be in society and tempered by it is respectable. It’s not a binary that is separated by a hurdle. Because I am an adult, I have understanding of where they are in their journey of being socialized as an adult. I respect the effort they have made, the understanding they’ve developed, and the progress they’ve achieved. I don’t confuse them with being an adult. But I nurture that desire to be an adult through connection and mentorship if that is available.
I can’t trust them like others that have so I can’t respect them like others. there are other ways to respect though.
I don’t trust them like others. I trust them for where they are. I respect them for who they are and where they are. As you said, there are other ways to respect. That is what I’ve chosen. Another way.
respect is a gift given from one individual to another. it signifies the trust one has in the other.
I agree that respect is a gift given. Gifts aren’t earned. They are not transactions. It says, “I see you.” Because I have developed eyes to see others, I can give that gift. I can give them space in my self for them to stretch and grow into whomever they are. Some of who they become is chosen, but some is set. I can see this. This is respect. “I see you again.” And as they grow into that person, they turn towards me and ask, “Do you see me?” and I can answer “I see you again and again.”
They can never emulate me because there is a part of me that will always be unreachable and unknown to them because they are not me. They can try to be like me and they the best success is if they are exactly like themselves in the process of being like me. An authentic self can emerge. I extend respect in hopes that they become themselves.
You talk like all the adults that made life hell when I was 15. If anyone has to “earn” respect, it’s adults who forgot what it’s like to live under someone else’s thumb.
you talk like a petulant child that was never pushed to achieve more than you thought you were capable of.
how’s that feel?
I remember every moment of my life. I remember being 10 months old laying in my crib smelling the herb garden out the window. I remember my parents never showing up to any of my school events. I remember the way the belt across my back and thighs felt when my father got home from a “hard day”. I remember spending the weekend in jail because I was doing something my father made me do.
fuck you, asshole.
I never earned respect from them while they were alive. I didn’t even get any understanding from them. I only got yelled at, hit, and verbally abused when they felt they were losing control of their own life. respect is earned through proving you can be trusted with mature tasks. understanding should be given. understanding that a child may know to take out the trash but not know the importance of it. this makes it difficult for them to prioritize and objectively complete goals.
children need understanding from adults, to provide guidance that allows them to grow on their own power and lean on when they need support.
next time you want to attack someone based on who they are, take the entitled prick out of your mouth before you speak, asshole.
I never earned respect from them while they were alive
You shouldn’t have had to. They should have loved and respected you unconditionally.
I work at a pet store. I monitor anyone that looks between 12 and 18 closely. If I don’t, without fail they’re always the ones swatting at our animals for a laugh. Why, by Neptune’s briny piss, would I treat them with the respect that 9/10 times they don’t show to anyone else?
Yeah I remember being 15 and I was a little shit. Kids aren’t people yet.
I’m sad that so many people had such a shit time being 15.
I had a great time being 15. Back then I couldn’t even fathom being twenty, it felt like being old and I was never getting old (or so my 15yo self thought)
I remember my thoughts and feelings at 15, when I had no responsibilities, no understanding of how the world works, no awareness of my own flaws, and yet I knew everything. It was a blissful existence.
I remember being 15 and I had severe tooth pain and my parents refused to take me to a dentist for a year straight because teeagers are just whiny and dramatic. I ended up having four teeth removed. Lol
Was that supposed to stop after 15?
Because as a woman-type creature, born and raised, that has been the whole life experience so far…
And I’m more than twice that age now…
Having a baby face+being short will also do that to ya. Like, brother, we are the same damn age, why are you treating me like a child
Man I bet, that shit is rough. I’m also super short (two standard deviations below average for my a/s/l) and it just never stops being a thing.
I’m actually thankful for all my gray hair so people stop treating me like a goddamned child. The gray has its own drawbacks ofc, but I don’t care anymore, just don’t treat me like a kid.
My mother stopped using intimidation to get her way after I became aggressive at 23.
Going chimp is the only way so far that works for setting and enforcing boundaries. Some people shouldn’t be treated as human, but as ape. Watching nature documentaries helped me learn how to deal with pos family members.
Yeah mate I don’t have that option. “Going ape/chimp” at my size and general demeanor just looks like impotent rage, because it is. What is a 5 foot nothing going to do against anyone as far as boundary enforcement? (I used to wrestle; I know how to throw myself around, and I know I don’t stand a chance if most people call my bluff, but I’m fierce until you do call said bluff)
And the people aren’t family, but society as a whole. My family is all dead and doesn’t matter. Until she died, my mom was my most vocal advocate, that woman loved everything I represented that she could never be but wanted. But I haven’t had her since I was 23, and I’m almost 40 now so…
Umm, I’m just imagining someone still living off the parents who’s screaming like a monkey because his mother asked him to shower once this week. Like what kind of relationship are you allowing to continue where intimidation is effective? If you’re reliant on the person, I could understand not feeling like you could set boundaries before. But if you’re a healthy functional adult, you shouldn’t have to resort to “Going chimp”. Just like… live your life. Let them know you’re not gonna respond immediately to drama. Give them some distance and minimal effective communication so they know the point (not being an ass, but letting them know that you’re an adult with your own situations going on much like they’ve gone through and they’re burdening you now instead of supporting).
I only treat her like a chimp. I tried every advice the psychotherapist gave and nothing worked.
I wanted to move out, but she and my father insisted that work/school balance was extremely difficult and expensive. It wasn’t back then. They were both just lonely and didn’t want to lose their pet child. I ran from home at 21.
That first conflict at 23yo, was because my childhood cat died from inaction. My sister and I were visiting her and my sister noticed him being sluggish and weak. His breathing sounded laboured. So we booked an appointment at the vet. An hour or so later, he stumbled in gasping for breath and meowing weakly in between. We rushed him to the nearest vet clinic, but he didn’t make it.
He had a persistent cough for months leading up to it, but since we only visited her on occasion, we didn’t realise. In hindsight, her complaining about the cat pooping indoors and refusing to climb over the fence to a spot the neighbourhood dedicated to outdoor cats, should have raised alarm bells. I failed him.
Two days or so after his passing, I tried talking to my mother about what signs to look for and when to take pets to the vet. As always, she needs to have her way and tried to brush me off. Over and over I kept trying her to focus to no avail. For the first time, I saw red and seeing fear in her eyes. I did not get physical though, even though I would probably have had she continued to brush me off and shift blame of Timo’s death on me.
Needless to say, nothing changed. Another cat died from possibly a heart condition she ignored when the cat “seemed exhausted and too tired to walk” on their daily evening stroll. “He went limb when I picked him up.” Adding to it she mentioned how he seemed fin the next day, so she let him outside. 3 days later he was found under a bush, long dead. There probably wasn’t anything we could do to save him, but the fact she just ignored it despite undrrstanding he became unwell. is just how impossible it is to get her to do anything outside her whims. Mind you, I pay the vet bills. So it wasn’t even her money she’d be spending on a visit!
To this day, pets to her are just something to have to fill loneliness. Adopted a cat with PTSD, which she knew about before agreeing. She wanted to “get rid of him” because he was “stupid and retarded.” Pawn him off over a hand-me-down website or to a shelter. Chimp mode is what made her keep the cat. Threatning her with animal protection and that I would make sure she’d never have pets again, is what worked. Reasoning did not.
The cat is doing well now. He still has PTSD, but he loves the outdoors and after weeks of feeding him, he becomes cuddly with you. He also loves my mom now, so she is happy about it too. It took 2-3 months of gradually building his trust.
My mom has always used fear to get her way. When we were young, she’d use a belt to dicipline us. When my sister was 4, she beat her till bruising with a stick for walking away. She walked away after my mother left her alone to sit on a chair for 30min. A 4 year old cannot wait that long.
As we got older, she added manipulative tactics. Though she used different methods, implying violence while shifting blame was her go-to method. Kept us docile and we thought we had deserved it. As she also brought us up in a cult that believed in karma. Our dad was a coward and avoided every conflict with her.
That programming doesn’t just go away. And “simply living your life” back then seemed impossible. My sister, our dad and I are all close to no contact. I only ever talk to her when she needs help. I despise her, but I also know her history and what made her so cruel. Last time I was there was when the neighbourhood has a gas leak problem. So they were without heating. Brought her my electric heater and taught her how to use it. I hate her, but letting the old bitch sleep in the cold is going too far. Hadn’t spoken with her in 4 months by that time.
She doesn’t respect boundaries. Never takes no for an answer and guilt trips you if you’re not careful. So my sister and I speak out, she doesn’t respect it and always starts pressing our buttons to get her way. At which point, I walk away.
My sister avoids all contact nowadays after she threw a rock hard loaf of “spelt” bread at our mom. Our mom deserved it after trying to ridicule and emotionally hurt my sister. Implying she was stupid for not listening to our mother’s endless commands. That she had deserved it when her sunglasses fell off the table. Which fell off the table because our mother had pushed them off by accident after placing her bag on the table.
Chimp mode is what we call losing our patience and seeking conflict. I got physical thankfully only once after she had locked the front door and I didn’t have a key to open it to get out. All because she wanted me to stay for lunch and followed me around trying to convince me to stay. I tried to walk away after she tried to paint my dad in a bad light for “wanting to abort me.” Which I already knew. What got me livid was the complete disrespect towards me in the way she said it, brushed me off and gave multiple improv bullshit reasons when I pressed for details. I knew that she wasn’t telling the whole story and that there was a reason she’d casually mention it point blank.
In hindsight she only said it because she was jelous that my dad and I were getting closer (he was an absent father).
Only recently I found out that she did have an abortion. She aborted my older brother because she didn’t want a son. She was and still is that controlling.
She’ll never change. At best, she might be able to learn something. I made progress with her, and found a way to get her attention and be receptive. The opposite of chimp mode if you will. Takes a lot of energy and it’s like navigating a minefield. The recent year my life’s had more shit than I could handle. I do not have the energy or mental fortitude to tolerate her enough to try to improve our relationship again. 5 minutes ot teaching her how to use the heater was too much already.
Effective communication does not exist with people who have 0 attention span and unwillingness to cooperate. Probably due to some form undiagnosed ADHD and personality disorder(s). We think PTSD and something in the borderline corner. It’s why we think aggression/hostility/direct conflict is the only thing she responds to. The only thing that gets her to back off. Chimp mode protects.
So. I was raised by a domestic violence lawyer. She was always really passionate about her job, about fighting abuse.
When I was in middle school, I was abused myself. A teacher. I knew what was happening. I knew what they said to do about - tell a trusted adult. They would know what to do.
My mother, the domestic violence lawyer, always so passionate about stopping abuse. She didn’t believe me. I was just a dumb kid, and kids make things up all the time.
I realized there’s not much a kid can do to protect themself. “Tell a trusted adult” is the solution, not because adults are more responsible, but because they actually have fucking rights. If an adult has a bad job, they can get up and quit. If I tried to walk away from school, I’d be beaten.
None of the adults wanted to listen to me, so what could I do? Jack fucking shit. I had that teacher for three years until I moved on to high school. I still have the trauma.
Treat kids like people. I don’t want to hear any of this shit about how stupid they are. They know more about their own life experience than you do. Listen to them
Dude… That’s so depressing to read, I’m so sorry. I’m sure it wouldn’t help, and I’m pretty certain I can guess the answer, but did you ever tell your mum when you were older? Are you still in contact with her? Can’t blame you if you’re not, I probably would go NC myself.
I remember being 15. That’s why I’m alright with treating 15-yos as idiot kids
The older I get the more I realize everyone is an idiot. I’m an idiot, everyone I work with is an idiot. Politicians are idiots. Celebrities are idiots. Old, young, doesn’t matter. We all float down here and you will all get treated like the idiot I am 🙃
I’m confused, why?
I’m 50 and I don’t think I’m an idiot. I don’t think I was an idiot when I was 40. I don’t think I was an idiot when I was 30. I don’t think I was an idiot when I was 20. I don’t think most people around me are idiots. Somehow we must have a different definition of “idiot”.
I’ll have you know I was extremely intelligent at 15. Tested genius levels, at least 95th percentile, probably as high as 98th.
I was still an idiot kid.
Do we make rules for the mainstream, or for the exceptional people?
It’s neat you were so exceptional, but you could then understand rules weren’t made to keep you safe and that leading by example was your role.
I’m not sure you understood my point.
I’m sure that most people don’t:-P
Nah, I was a shitter at 15. I know now that the thoughts and feelings I had held no real water and I was just an idiot. Now, with everything I’ve learned and experienced, I would absolutely tell my 15 year old self to sit down and stfu.
Hello fellow shithead. I am 37 now, I have two kids, and my biggest worry is identifying the shitty, stupid behaviors I had as a kid, and trying to find them in my own kids, and figuring out what, if anything, I can do to prevent them from making the stupid mistakes I made. They are not even close to 15 at this point, so I’ve got some years to prepare.
That’s not today that I don’t at least appreciate, just a little, what the OP is saying. I can’t forget that my kids are humans with their own ideas. I don’t want to stifle their creativity and their growth. But what they cannot possibly understand, and what I’m continuing to learn to this day, is just how big an impact some small decisions can have.
Counterpoint: grow up and learn to say no to your 15 year old self. “I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare!” is only a waypoint on the path to maturity, and immaturity is poorly disguised by pleas to “please somebody think of the children!” Children are welcome to have all their own thoughts and feelings, but having thoughts and feelings doesn’t entitle or qualify anybody to amplify them into leadership and policy.
I get compliments on my kids behavior so often. People beg me for my secrets. It’s simple. I have treated them with respect as an individual person since day one. We only use our words to communicate and we never raise our voices. We apologize when we make mistakes and make it right. We talk about our feelings and work towards compromise. All these rules apply to kids and adults equally.
I grew up with spankings and being told “I’ll give you something to cry about if you don’t shape up” and “just do as you’re told, no questions”. I won’t repeat those behaviors.
Yep, I talk with teens ~12 y.o. and up just like I would any adult, I have real conversations with them, including debates, and they appreciate it. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that being a teenager or being a young adult wasn’t even a concept, you were a kid and around 12/13 you were an adult.
People are always surprised in a good way when kids like me so much and quickly.
It is not hard, I just treat them like a real person, I respect them and actively listen to them.
Kids are so much smarter than people give them credit for and it is not hard to do.
