It occurs to me that teenagers really do need special care.
They're brittle. I don't mean physically so (in most cases), but profoundly so from an emotional standpoint. I'll explain why I believe that.
If someone calls me a name or implies that I'm foolish, ugly, stupid or unworthy, that creates a kind of microscopic identity crisis. After all, in my own mind, I'm not those things... but maybe the insulter is right? It creates that little inconsistency with my own personal story of me.
But that little assault on my self worth has quite the mountain to charge up to gain any traction.
I am a husband. I've been with the same woman since I was 19 years old. I've made our relationship work across years and thousands of miles. I am a father. I helped bring my child into the world, and I've been there for him since he could draw breath. We got through his colic, his terrible twos, his three-nage years and beyond. I taught him to tie his shoes, how to write, and how to be a good person. I am a son. When my father had a stroke during law school, I drove up 100 miles to help look after him every weekend after it happened. I am an attorney sworn to uphold the constitution. I've represented thousands of men and women in their darkest times, and stayed there through their suffering and shared their triumphs. I am a budoka. I've been in a dojo for 13 years trying to forge myself into the best human being I can be. I've done the work, endured the discomfort, and I have the gifts to show for it.
If you want to sell me a narrative that I'm not worthy, you'd better be one hell of a salesman because I've got plenty of proof to the contrary.
Most insults are droplets of water against the mountain that is my life's stories. In my law practice, I've often said that stories are my weapons. But they're also my armor. Against the backdrop of the story of me, the insults don't mean much, and I don't pay them much mind.
Many teenagers often don't have that kind of narrative as a form of psychological armor. They are unsure of their worth, and do not have as many "external reference points" to back it up. Even the things they know about themselves that should make them strong are unsure... a narrative that they haven't entirely bought into yet.
Things that would not cause me to lose a night's sleep can be agony to teenagers. It's easy to lose sight of that. I try to be mindful of that in my interactions with teens. Even if a teen says or does something utterly stupid, I remind myself of how they are and how we all started out that way.
Even if I have to take them to task on something, I try and do so in a way that uplifts and adds to their dignity and sense of worth. Instead of "I can't believe you did something this stupid," it's "I believe you have it in you to choose something more noble." It's not "who do you think you are?" but rather "who do you want to be?"
See, by my reckoning, we all have that story we tell ourselves about ourselves. If I was a better Buddhist, maybe I'd just tell everyone to let go of that narrative. But the reality is that doing so is no easy task. I've been trying for two decades with only limited success. With that in mind, I try and do the next best thing: I try and make my interactions with teens (and everyone else for that matter) positive chapters in the story of their being. I want our experiences together to be rocks that help form the mountain of their life, that will give them to strength to endure the world as it is when they become adults.
So the next time you see a young person doing something that draws your ire, think about the story you want to be part of, and the landscape you want to help build.
