Stop Believing Teenagers. . . .

Okay, okay. . . . before you come for me with rage in your squishy hearts, hear me out.

I've been a high school teacher for 24 years and. . . I'm here to tell you that, despite the title and all the assumptions you're currently making about me, I actually love my job and I think teenagers are wildly entertaining and interesting. . . . most days. But something I've noticed over the past five-ish years is starting to cause me some alarm in our (and by "our" I mean schools mostly) daily dealings with teenagers/students.

When did the adults in teenagers' lives become so willing to believe the foolishness that comes out of their mouths?

Let me give y'all some context.

One of the biggest issues I face with my students is absenteeism. There are a lot of reasons why students are chronically absent. And, if we're being transparent, some of them are truly, legitimately out of the student's sphere of control. Some of the reasons are actually heartbreaking. But. . . . and it's a BIG BUT. . . most of the reasons students are chronically absent are ridiculous. There's this mix of: they go off with their friends to do "other" things, their parents don't check in on them, they feel like school is dumb and hanging out is way cooler, they don't have anyone holding them accountable for being in school, a lack of systemic accountability for truancy, they'd rather hang out in the bathrooms (eww!!). . . . . I could go on but I think it's pretty clear where I'm going with this. Inevitably, this leads to me contacting parents, counselors, administrators and the like. The students often meet with some of these folks and they always, ALWAYS promise to turn over a new leaf. How often does this actually happen? Almost. Never.

The same is true for behavior issues as well. I cannot tell you how many times I've had an administrator tell me, "I met with so-and-so and they promise to never such-and-such again. They are really sorry." This after the student has taken their non-academic behaviors past the point of every, single trick I have in my teacher-bag-of-trying-everything-before-contacting-an-administrator.

The thing is, when teenagers are in a spot of trouble or discomfort they will do and say anything to make that discomfort go away. They will lie their little hearts out to get the adults to shut up and leave them alone.

I don't begrudge them that. I was no different. Most of us weren't. It's part of the developmental process. My experience is that teens are masters at taking the path of least resistance. They want immediate gratification and they want things to be easy. This is true for most of the kids I work with--most of the time. This was true for my "accelerated" students when I taught ELA also. It's not a "good" vs. "bad" student thing. It's a teenager thing.

My "issue" with this is that the adults in their lives, WHO KNOW BETTER, actually believe them!?!?! WHY?!?!?!? Is it wishful thinking? Willful ignorance? Feelings of magnanimity? I don't know. But I do know that we'd be better served teaching students to be honest while reinforcing and affirming positive, incremental changes instead of blindly believing that a student who hasn't attended even 10% of their classes will magically now attend every day.

I don't have all the answers. . . to anything if I'm being honest. . . but shouldn't we folks in education be working within the bounds of the things we know to be true about our teenage students? There must be a way to kindly call them out on their lies so they know that we know what's what. Do we really think it builds good relationships when they think we'll believe anything they tell us? I don't think it does. If what I hear around school is even 10% accurate, they think we're a bunch of gullible fools. That doesn't sound like a good foundation for positive relationship building. I also think we're missing a golden opportunity to teach students/teens how to manifest positive changes in their lives without traipsing down the path of self delusion. I think most of us know that changing negative habits/behaviors is usually a process. Most of us don't just flip a switch and change. Why would we think kids could do so--especially when many of them haven't been taught how to make changes in their lives?

I'm also not saying that students/teens lie all the time, about every thing. I'm really targeting the lies they tell us adults (and themselves) when they are called out for something they should or should not be doing. So. . . let's stop believing them. . . and START helping them become their better selves.