Our young adult children are less confident than we think. The teen and young adult years have always been filled with anxiety as guys and girls, filled with a sudden and powerful rush of hormones, are catapulted into scenarios they’ve never encountered before. The drive for independence that is flipped on whispers to them that they are alone in tackling these missions and that they should know everything they need to do so. They are let loose in situations much bigger than they have been expected to navigate in the past. No more is the security of only one or two classrooms and teachers and bragging rights as the most experienced students in elementary school. No more is the car line an orderly process with strict procedures. No longer is their entire life orchestrated for them. Now, there are decisions. Choices. Freedom. And the very people that they need advice from, their bodies are telling them to push away. A necessary evil for parent and child, yes. But easy? No.
As all of the other teens and young adults are going through similar experiences, the chaos is magnified. The process of finding one’s place in a “society” where every member is at a different place of this very difficult journey, results in an explosion of emotion that causes both inner and outer conflicts. Everyone wants to feel accepted and affirmed, to belong. Yet, in the process, as is inherent in the imperfection of every individual, they step on each other in an effort to elevate themselves. Some are able to engage long enough in the scuffle to move up and down the social ladder, while others bottom out and get trampled.
Meanwhile, as societal advances continue, the good of such enhancements is often outweighed by the negative progress that comes as a direct result. A virtual world is faster, more efficient, and incredibly comprehensive, but that is also just the problem. When we eliminate the process, we often eliminate the learning that accompanies it. When we learn to expect the instantaneous, we grow impatient and fail to realize that goals and visions take time and a whole lot of effort to come to fruition. Without tangible coins and bills, paper billing, and checkbooks to balance, there is little connection made between risks and benefit, costs and value. We don’t fully solidify the link between hard work and survival or enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Are these lessons completely lost? Absolutely not, but they also affect how we work and how we relate to others. When a two year old knows how to ask a machine for information, a teen or young adult has trouble understanding how to think for themselves. They miss the process, the “doing” that transmits information into long-term memory and the opportunity to learn the emotional regulation necessary to work through frustration.
The result is impulsiveness, and to a brain that is still learning to think before it acts, the risk of consequences is magnified. There are no longer boundaries on the input that may enter young people’s minds, complicating the very natural process of determining one’s place in this world. With constant input, there is not rest, and with greater efficiency comes higher expectations for round the clock results. This is starting in schools, and while much of technology is positive, it is blurring the line between work, school, and home. Again, our rest is constrained, and our time together as families is more and more interrupted.
Today’s technology has brought us closer together and farther apart almost simultaneously. It draws so many people into our lives that it can be hard to determine which ones to pay more attention to and which ones to filter out. Advertisements sneak their way onto our screens distracting us from our intended tasks and communications. Biased news and opinionated comments disguise themselves as fact, and smiling faces and proud reports of loved ones’ accomplishments trick our minds into thinking that we are seeing the whole picture of others’ lives.
Being bombarded with such messages has proven to be responsible for increased depression and anxiety, and that’s not just with teens. Teens and young adults add that to an already overwhelming time of identity crisis and fierce physical change. So, give them a break. There’s a lot behind their words and actions. Read between the lines. Be their safe place. They need you. They want you. But, they also are trying to grow up. And that’s a very difficult balance to strike.
