Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety. John Duffy
with little self-worth, that sense of self-consciousness and negative comparisons to others striking them early in their lives. Social media being such a potent part of the currency of adolescence, and so critical to connection with peers, it’s all but necessary for a thriving social life. But there is a massive layer of demand presented to kids as well. They not only feel the need to be “on” when they are at school or out with friends, but even when they are alone, during what once was downtime for children, they are working through their alternate identity, the one they are crafting on social media.
And make no mistake, social media is an enormous component of social currency, now and for the foreseeable future. And it is a craft. Have a look at your son or daughter’s Instagram feed, their most recent Snap story. I suspect it is artful, or funny, or clever, or beautiful. Your kids work on this. For many, it is their primary method for bolstering their self-esteem, for forming an identity. Given that this is the first generation presented with this pressure-filled mandate, it’s worthwhile to take a moment and marvel at what they have created out of the blank slate of an empty profile. They didn’t come up with this—it has been foisted upon them. We owe them a moment of credit for what they do there.
Social media has rapidly become integral to teenage identity and self-worth. We don’t have to appreciate this reality, but we do need to recognize and accept it.
There is another dark, insidious reality to social media. Bullying has become more of an online activity than a physical one. I have worked with so many teenagers who have had to see hate posts, and hate pages, put up online about them, for either all the world to see or, at the very least, their entire class. In part because they are created online, the assaults are more vicious and intense, the hate and berating more unbearable, than a physical confrontation in a school hallway could ever be. Cowardice works that way; it’s the road rage of the internet. And like everything else posted “out there,” the bullied teen can, and often does, revisit that awful page over and over again.
The bullied child will often tell me and their parents that it is no big deal, it’s just playful, or it really doesn’t hurt that much. But the pain is too palpable to ignore. If you find there is a bullying page or post about your child, it is time to advocate hard for her. Get on the phone with other parents. Call the school. Let it be known that this behavior will not be tolerated. I will warn you that your child will try to talk you out of this, suggesting that calling attention to the bullying will only make it worse. But that tends not to be the case in reality. Once called out, bullies tend to back down, especially if a grounding, suspension, or even expulsion lies in the balance. Having worked with bullies, I find they also feel a deep sense of shame and regret once exposed to the light of day. Bullying is more a projection of self-disdain than it is loathing for a classmate.
In fact, we need to pause and note here that bullying, online or otherwise, is never a one-dimensional issue. Part of the problem we have culturally is labeling without understanding, and bully is a heavy label. I have worked with many bullies in my career. And each time, I realize quickly that, though bullying may well be a behavior this child manifests, there are emotional reasons underlying their negative and hostile actions. More often than not, I find that, some time in their lives, bullies have been bullied, by a peer, a parent, or some other trusted adult in their lives. I find that bullies are, right under the arrogant and angry surface, deeply insecure, often lashing out before they can be victimized themselves. In order to evoke change culturally, we need to understand the pain of the bully as well as that of the bullied, and make sure that both receive the help they need to heal and move on. If we tend only to the bullied, we may unwittingly be perpetuating a cycle that can last for generations.
Keep this in mind if your child is accused of bullying of any kind. This behavior is unacceptable and damaging, but it is also, in its own way, a cry for help. Part of your mandate as a parent is to answer that cry. Make sure your child receives the help she needs, and please do not shy away from seeking professional help for your child. I cannot think of many circumstances under which this is a bad idea.
Okay, back to social media.
On the whole, I find that social media is too often a primary source of conflict between parents and children. And I get it—it is maddening to see your child, face down, constantly illuminated by the glow of their phone screen. But we need to keep in mind the meaning held in that screen for them.
And we need to present them with options. This is among the most important tasks parents need to face. I am often asked to provide a number: how much time per day is acceptable on social media?
It’s a fair question, but it’s the wrong question. More on this later.
Now, to be fair, many young people have offered me a very reasoned counterpoint to the scourge of screens and social media, a marked upside.
I was musing recently with a teenage client, Thomas, playing with the idea often spouted by my generation and the generation preceding me that kids today, through the shorthand of texting, emojis, memes, and flat-out stupid communication through Snapchat, are bastardizing and ruining the language. “Kids can’t write, or read, anymore,” “The art of intelligent discourse is dead,” I hear frequently. My wise young client Thomas pushed back hard on this notion, suggesting that quite the opposite is true. He pointed out, accurately, that his generation is actually very well-read and well-informed. Along with many of his contemporaries, he noted that his generation reads all the time, and is learning to be far more discerning and critical of what they ingest through all the internet has to offer.
“On our phones, we read way more than you guys did when you were our age, no doubt.”
Fair enough, Thomas.
He cited, in particular, Reddit, an online clearinghouse of news digests, memes, jokes, and debates. Picture a Huffington Post for young people. It can be vulgar and offensive at times (that’s part of the point), but it can be thought-provoking and highly informative as well. Twitter is another of his “news” sources, though with both sites, he does feel the need to dig in and verify information before developing an opinion.
So, Thomas would argue that his generation reads an incalculable number of pages of information per day, and is discerning truth and developing points of view nearly constantly, in real time. Unlike our generation, he would argue, they think in sophisticated ways all the time, every day. That discernment of thought may not be measured by exams in an English class, but Thomas does argue that it is a life skill his generation is the first to master at an early age, and which, in the internet age, will prove to be even more critical as time goes on.
Thomas would agree, by the way, that he and his friends communicate frequently via text shorthand, meme, or emoji. But he would further argue that older generations are missing the point. There is an understanding between young people that these methods are foolish and inane at times, but that is part of the humor in communicating that way. He adds that, “Well, at the very least, we are communicating, way, way more than your generation. We are in nearly constant touch with each other. So, if you guys are worried that we are socially out of touch, I think you’re 100 percent wrong.”
With smartphones, and the social and other media that accompany them, our kids discern more and think more than we ever did at their ages. We would do well to recognize, and find new ways to value, this fresh set of skills our kids are developing.
I also think we need to integrate some of them into our middle school and high school curriculum, by the way. I worked with Nathan, a bright, out-of-the-box-thinking nineteen-year-old, as he reflected on his high school years. Between sessions of taping a podcast with him, he offered the following wisdom:
“I can’t believe we are still working with this outdated method of teaching, with textbooks and lectures, man! And the exams and papers, all the ways we measure what we’ve learned, it all needs to change. I mean, the reality is we do have the internet, and we do have brains. And these are the things we are going to use every day for the rest of our lives to distill information. But school systems work the same way they did fifty years ago, when none of this even existed. They’ve got to change with the times. Because I know a lot of brilliant kids. But that genius isn’t gonna show up on a report card anymore.”
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