Why does a teenager run away from home? Because sometimes you get lost in a sea of indifference. Because he looks at adults who are no longer interested in anything in this life, and is horrified: will I ever be like that? The task of adults is to create an environment in which children will not be afraid to grow up.
A teenager is a gutta-percha creature, according to Mikhail Gasparov, “in his development he stretched out like a train, and is exhausted, running along himself from head to tail.” (1) He does not believe that he was not the first born in this world, it is strange to him when reminded that he is not at all the navel of the earth. And who then?! A teenager is, as it were, in the waiting room of adulthood. They undress in front of him, but they don’t take them with them behind the closed door. Therefore, he peeps and speculates, to the extent of his own imagination. A teenager aspires to adulthood – to freedom. It has no other benefits.
A teenager, most often, acts swiftly, reflexively, without thinking. He is a man of direct action to a much greater extent than a man of any other age. We once walked with students along the embankment of the Moscow River. The parked cars were piled with their front wheels on the pavement. One “Zhiguli” pulled ahead by half a body, completely blocking the hiking trail. “I wish I could hit him so that it would be disrespectful,” I breathed out with fake anger, squeezing with difficulty between the parapet of the embankment and the nose of the car. And suddenly he heard a characteristic knock behind him: it was the fifteen-year-old Ruslanchik who slammed his palm on the hood of the car, immediately turning the teacher’s wish into reality. My “red word” was for him a direct guide to action.
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Teenagers are demonstrative, but secretive. They express themselves in a cry, but are internally clamped and shy. They are divided into those who adapt “for everyone”, and those who want to stand out with something. But often they get along well with both. It is not worth fighting with their reference group at this stage, with which they compare their watches and which they want to become a part of. It’s up to adults to just keep themselves as a sustainable alternative. Be as close as possible. And be indifferent.
Growing up people have another remarkable feature: they want to be better than they have to be. By the way, with age, this desire disappears. Once one of them told me: “I live normally, like everyone else. But of course I want something different. The only question is, can I? Many people want it differently, but only a few will manage without outside help. In fact, the majority needs protection, smart advice, sensitive participation, no matter how hard they try to show the opposite. Therefore, for successful communication with children, only three qualities are needed – sincerity, kindness and justice. You can’t “play pedagogy”, just portray empathy – sooner or later, imitation will be revealed, and children will close themselves from us forever.
A teenager by its nature is a hoarder: necessary and unnecessary things, knowledge, other people’s opinions, experience of one’s own mistakes. It is not necessary to condemn him for consumerism and, moreover, to reproach him. The time will come, and he will begin to give. And the main thing is to respect him, not forgetting that “generations are created from teenagers” (2).
1. M. Gasparov “Notes and extracts” (UFO, 2008).
2. F. Dostoevsky “Teenager” (Azbuka, Azbuka-Atticus, 2011).