“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”
– James Baldwin
I have several friends who are raising teenagers and I use the term “raising” loosely. By the time they are teenagers your direct influence has waned to the point of near-nonexistence. If you’re raising these post-adolescent humans (“human” also being a loosely used term), you probably haven’t considered the reality that you actually do influence them indirectly.
The values you instilled in them in their formative years, believe it or not, continue to guide them throughout their lives. Further, they do listen to you even when they fray your nerves and drive you to the brink of insanity.
Over the holidays, I listened at a party to a couple with a continually irate teenage boy who simply can’t get his homework turned in. My divorced friend and drinking buddy, also raising a teenage boy, ranted at length last Friday about how his son thinks the world comprises nothing but Internet gaming.
My friend raising a teenage girl on her own declined an invitation to lunch yesterday because she was in the middle of grounding her daughter for a series of violations she kept to herself. Finally, my friend with a teenage boy and girl was brought to tears last night by her daughter who was suspended from UIL competition because she’s failing nearly all of her classes and didn’t want to be told to bring her grades up. Well, these things are typically more complicated than that, but it began with a simple exhortation that you have to pass to play. Continue reading
