“I really want to have your problems again!” Did you hear those words all too often in your youth? I can’t remember exactly HOW often I heard it from adults. They’d want to have my problems? “Yes, then, take them! You can have them all!”, I would have liked to scream sometimes. Unfortunately it wasn’t that simple.
But why don’t adults really take teenagers’ problems seriously?
Teenagers’ problems = small problems?
Many adults think that young people cannot have yet so big problems, as adults. Therefore, their problems are automatically rated lower. This is a fact that pisses me off every time. Especially since I see with my own daughter how big problems can really seem for her and because I know from my own experience how bad it feels not to be taken seriously. We all had to go through this experience back then. But do we really have to pass it on to our children? I don’t think so!
Unfortunately, we often forget how frustrated we were when we didn’t know what to do and all the adults just turned away. Our teenage problems were just not important enough. They weren’t adult problems, so from their thinking no real problems.
Teenagers have different problems
I think we all agree that (most) teenagers do not have the same problems as adults. They don’t have to worry about terminations, rent payments, bills — of course, that’s a completely different thing. Nobody wants to sugarcoat that either. Nevertheless, we should not always dismiss teenage problems. Because the pressure on our children is also increasing all the time — either from us, the parents, or from politicians who are raising their expectations and so from our children’s teachers at school.
The tone becomes rougher and rougher between them as soon as they no longer fit into the scheme and deviate from the norm — no matter how fine the nuance really is. Individualists need a thick skin. And this is in short supply, especially during puberty. In the past, we were said to have teenage problems such as being lovesick, having bad grades and impure skin. That was hardly true in my time as a teenager. Today’s teenagers can even only hardly smile about these problems. They worry about their careers, about our environment, our politics, about racism and the hostility in general among all people around the world.
They are bullied at school if they are different, if they have too good grades, if they have too bad grades, if they are too colorful, if they are too colorless. For some teenagers, school time is pure horror. And that doesn’t even include the “typical” teenage problems like lovesickness and impure skin.
Teenage problems can lead to depression
Not taking teenagers and their teenage problems seriously can have far-reaching consequences. It is not without reason that many doctors have been warning for years that these “harmless” teenage problems can lead to depression or other mental illnesses. They are increasingly found in puberty, but are usually misunderstood, because teenagers “are funny at that age anyway!” Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses among teenagers.
In contrast to what many adults believe, depression in adolescents will not fade and be healed by itself. It lasts for a long time and if it’s not recognized, it can become entrenched or even worsen. In fact, more boys than girls suffer from depression, but the disease occurs in all sexes.
The symptoms range from a lack of self-confidence to anxiety and eating disorders — many are similar to those of puberty, which is why depression is often not recognized in young people.
Depression is not a question of willpower and it is not weakness. It is a recognized mental illness which in the worst case can lead to suicide!
The worst thing you can say to your children is “Pull yourself together!” Because it doesn’t work during puberty or depression. But while adolescents learn to deal with hormonal and emotional changes during puberty, depressives often can’t get out of their depressions on their own. They feel petrified and empty.
Who am I actually? The great identity crisis of teenagers
Puberty itself is already a difficult thing to handle for teenagers, which adds to the actual teenager problems. Finding your own identity, developing your own style and becoming more independent of your parents is a phase that has cost us all a lot of sleep and, if we are honest, has driven us out of our minds many times.
Depending on where the identity journey leads to, the next battle follows directly after it: that of being accepted. By friends, by parents, by teachers and whoever else has anything to do with us. Especially when young people decide that they want to deviate from the classic — or rather old-fashioned — gender roles, there is often not much sign of acceptance in their own environment. Non-acceptance and the bullying resulting from that can lead to depression, too.
How often do I notice that friends say to their children: “Oh, it’s just a phase” or “You have to distract yourself. If you have nothing to do, then help me in the household.” But none of that offers a solution, because it doesn’t address the problem. It is only repressed. And repression has never really worked. That’s why it’s important that we as parents do listen to our kids. Even though we may not consider the teenage problems as big and all-encompassing as our own. Nevertheless, they are real for teenagers and feel equally bad for them. And we should never forget that.
