The Misunderstood Teenagers

The Misunderstood Teenagers

I think we all can agree to the statement that the teenagers are the most misunderstood people on Earth. They are expected to be children but understand mature aspects of life. People just cannot stop expecting from these poor teenagers. In the hefty job of making people understand their plight, they usually end up inviting more chaos.

Read on to find out what us teenagers want the world to know about us!

1. We are humans, we make mistakes. 
We are at a learning age. That is what is taught to us that this is the age which defines your future. But this being a sensitive age, we absolutely are curious about new things and with our hormones at the peak, we do make some mistakes. But it doesn’t mean that we have turned bad or we are distracted. We made a mistake once and we learned from it! And even if we didn’t, we know that we have our families to guide us to the right direction. So it is a high time people stop blaming us for our mistakes.

2. We know our limits and restrictions.
Yes, it gives a chill to our parents when we opt for something risky. Chiding and frequent warnings follows. To this we just want to say “Parents, please cut us some slack! We have been busting ourselves our whole life for a future”. We don’t even know what our future holds for us but we constantly try to make it better. In this process, even we feel like giving us a break once in a while. So what if we are out with friends till late a night? We do know our limits and our restrictions. We do know that you worry about us. But we do need some leisure time, don’t you think? Comparing our case with just another newspaper case won’t make us less needy for a break.

3. It’s OK to be friends with other gender.
We live in a conservative society. Even in the 21st century, our society is so conscious about the interaction between two different genders. See a girl talking to a guy at the end of a street and all we know is that some random auntie will be commenting on this supposedly “big issue” in the next kitty party. Is that really necessary? For all we know she might be asking him for notes or maybe they might just be friends! What is so wrong with being friends? What is so wrong about a bunch of guys and girls or just a guy and a girl hanging out together? It doesn’t necessarily mean they are seeing each other. We all constitute a society and a society is meant for social interactions. So if next time you see your child or some random kid in presence of a person of other gender, at least try to not make a big deal out of it.

4. Parents, we too want to make you proud, we understand your feelings too.
All of us love our families dearly. Believe it or not, every teenager imagines their parents beaming at their graduation or on their first job. And the feeling of making them proud is so warm to us. It is also one of the things which motivates us to try harder. So we do understand you. We do know that you want the best for us. We also want to be the best for you. But our search for the best in us might not match your expectations sometimes. Maybe in these situations you can try and support us rather than showing us that we have disappointed you. There is nothing more heartbreaking for us than seeing disappointment in the eyes of our parents. So the next time your daughter scores less in Mathematics even when she studied all night for it, understand the fact that she might be good in other subjects, English for example, rather than giving her a sense of disappointment.

5. Extra-curricular activities are just as important as studies.
One thing which our society just cannot bear is watching their children fail in studies. What is more painful is that some of us are forced to make studies our priority even though we lack at it. So a boy might run to school and tuition everyday and yet score less than satisfactory in his examinations. All the society sees is that the boy is not good at studies. Some might say that he doesn’t try hard and some other that he is into bad habits. Before stereotyping the poor fellow, did you look into the fact that he is an excellent football player and how extremely passionate he is about to become a footballer? Maybe studies is not his forte but instead of repressing him everyday, you can build his confidence in the area he is good at.

6. We can’t fulfill everybody’s expectations.
Building up on the previous point, it should be highlighted that we are just normal kids. We cannot concentrate on every person’s expectations. We already have to work hard on fulfilling our dear parents’ expectations and more or less, our own expectations. Hence, obviously our blood boils when someone questions our choices. Instead of questioning and undermining them, you could support and appreciate us for our hard work. Because in the end, we learn from our mistakes and feel satisfied with our achievements.

7. We can’t be childish and mature at the same time.
The most confusing task we are faced with, is to act childish and mature according to the situation. People expect us to “behave” in accordance with the demand of the situation. All that does is put pressure on us. We still have to see a lot in this world. There are still a lot of experiences left in our store. We cannot do that with people nagging us about how we behave. We know what values our parents have inculcated in us. We will always think twice before violating them.

8. Technology isn’t our worst enemy.
All the teenagers have heard their parents cursing their mobile phones for low grades once in their lifetime. It may be true and it may be not. Technology is not our worst enemy. Just because we have our phones or our laptops in hand, doesn’t mean we are deriving bad influence from them. Most of the students use gadgets to help them in work nowadays. Playing games and watching movies aren’t bad either. Yes, you have full right to stop us if we get addicted to them but nagging every time you see us on are phones and tablets is just wrong.

9. Our choice of friends.
People often say that the friends we make in our college phase are the ones who stick with us our whole life. We hear this from our families too. But most of us teenagers fall prey to our parents judging our choice of friends. We do thank you for warning us about the wrong peers in our life. But criticizing our every friend saddens us. It is a kind of absurd ideology that a friend with low grades will have bad influence on us and the one in the scholar’s list won’t. Why should a person’s report card judge his behavior? For all we know that he might be the only one who understands us and helps us in the time of need. Most of us have encountered these high notch scholars who like to look down upon others or pass snide remarks on them. Hence, our grades do not really specify our attitude.

10. Understanding the generation gap.
This might be the biggest misunderstanding between a child and a parent. Instead of forcing down the rules and values of their time, parents can try to bridge the gap by trying to understand how much the world has changed from their time to our time. Criticizing a person or doubting his or her every action is not a way of making your child comfortable with you. By understanding a teenager’s psyche and being patient with him can make a lot of difference in filling the gaping hole of communication. How can you expect a child to share things with you when you plainly refuse to hear him? Comfort arises from a two-way communication. And it is a very important aspect in a child-parent relationship.

All the teenagers ponder about these issues once in their life time. But in spite of all the problems we face, we love our teenage lives. We have forever memories of it. And in spite of various misunderstandings with our families, we know that they love us to the core and we can always rely on. We just want them to understand us just the way they want us to understand them.

As Saoirse Ronan says-

All teenagers want to rebel a little and break away. But I think you are always going to want to go back to your parents for that safety they provide.

 

 

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