A Little Compassion...

Growing up is a lifelong journey. So is building and maintaining healthy relationships. I was talking to someone who is a school counselor the other day about something, and what they said really resonated with me. It was the general idea of this:

"Adults being unkind is one thing; we are mature and developed and should know right from wrong. Teenagers acting out or being unkind is another. They need guidance. They need empathy and room to grow and learn; the opportunity to be told what the problem is and resolve it. Often, they need direction on how to better react to something, because their brains are still learning how to shape their responses and they may honestly not know implicitly what makes something right or wrong. And yes, sometimes mistakes are made. We tend to expect them to know how to respond to anything today, but they don't have the experience and exposure and knowledge base to do that yet. There are a lot of outside factors at play, too. What they really need is an opportunity to learn and expand. As adults, it's our job not to cast kids aside but to find a way to help them."

That last line stuck with me. Did you know this? "For example, the area of the brain responsible for dampening our emotional responses and controlling some of our reactive behaviors, an area known as the prefrontal cortex, matures later in life than other parts. This imbalance throughout the growing teen brain is often what contributes to the behaviors we have come to expect from adolescents." (https://bold.expert/the-still-developing-teen-brain.../)

I can be guilty of expecting my teens to know exactly how to respond to things. I forget that they don't always see the example of how to do that - I don't share with them the issues or complications that arise in my life and need to be dealt with, because I don't want her saddled with grownup issues yet. There's enough in the world forcing them to grow up quickly. So when things happen in their teen world that need resolution, it requires a discussion that I often forget we need to have.

And sometimes they say the wrong thing, or sometimes they make the wrong choice. Sometimes, they don't even know it's the wrong choice because they lack the life experience to understand that. It's our job to walk them through it; to talk about the pros and the cons and the consequences.

In fact, we had a good talk about people I knew at 13 and know now, and how vastly different they are (and I am, for that matter). Kids who might have said an unkind word to me in grade school are now some of the kindest and most amazing people I know. Someone I teased in grade school so that I "fit in" is still one of the nicest people I know, and has forgiven me for the hurt I caused them back then.

We were kids. We were learning. We were growing. We were making mistakes. We were caving to peer pressure. We're still learning and growing and making mistakes, and sometimes caving to peer pressure. And each step of our journey changes the way we think and react. We become different people every day, every month, every year. We just need guidance to do that.

Sometimes that guidance comes from home. Sometimes it comes from a relative. Sometimes it comes from a friend or a coach or a teacher or a school counselor.

And it always comes from grace and understanding.