Teenage Idealism

The March For Our Lives demonstration this past weekend is a good example of what can be achieved when teenage idealism becomes focused on a particular issue. The event, in support of tighter gun control, was sparked by the shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February of this year. Last Saturday’s event is widely reckoned to be one of the largest demonstrations in American history, added to which there was a truly global response as marches of support took place in cities around the world.

Adults can sometimes be remarkably resistant to engaging with ideas advanced by teenagers. As Tyler Huckerbee says, “When your ideological opponent is a teenager, he or she is easy to dismiss … Why wrestle with the substance of their argument when it’s so much easier to just sigh about “kids these days” and be done with it?” Idealism is generally recognised as a characteristic of adolescents, and consequently can be given short shrift by adults. Certainly, there are situations where an idealistic view, allied to naivety, can be dangerous. However, idealism is by no means always a bad thing and can sometimes enable a level of clarity that seems to elude those with a more complex “adult” perspective.

Teenagers exhibit idealism as a result of the way their brains develop during adolescence. Early in adolescence, the brain’s computational capacity increases dramatically, bringing with it the ability for abstract thought. However, since the brain develops from back to front, younger adolescents rely more on emotional responses (located in the amygdala at the back of the brain) in their decision-making and responses. The ability for logical reasoning (located in the pre-frontal cortex at the front of the brain) develops much later in adolescence. Early on, then, teenagers are enabled to see the world in a new way through their capacity for abstract thought, but are likely to experience an emotion-driven “idealistic” response to how they want the world to be. The ability to analyze their response logically and to reason comes later, sometimes not until the early twenties, when a more complex “adult” view of the world develops.

Of course, the above is a simplified summary of a very complicated process that is subject, also, to individual variation. Additionally, how the teenage brain is used affects its development, so the way adults engage with teenagers can either promote or hinder the development of a healthy brain and patterns of thought. This is as true with the way adults respond to teenage idealism as with any other aspect of a teenager’s development.

Advice for Parents

Be interested, encourage and ask questions. At times, your teenager’s idealistic views will seem over-simplistic, but that’s because their idealism is a stage in their thought development. Teenage idealism is a sign of a work in progress, so it is important that by listening, encouraging and asking questions, you give them opportunities to refine and develop their thinking. Of course, that may mean that you need to invest some time in exploring for yourself the issues about which they are becoming passionate. Resist any temptation to dismiss their idealism. Well-informed discussion and thoughtful questions can be invaluable learning aids for your idealistic teenager. No discussion is wasted, even if their focus switches to another concern, as ultimately they are shaping their outlook on life and developing their moral approach to the world. By the way you engage with, and respond to, their idealism, you are seeking to model the healthy adult thinking processes that you would ultimately like them to adopt as their own.

Encourage the move from idealism to activism. Many older teenagers will eventually take this step for themselves. By encouraging the step from merely holding views about a subject to doing something practical about it, even with younger teenagers, you are facilitating the progress. Of course, the nature of the activism will vary according to the age, available resources and character of the individual teenager, but becoming actively involved at an appropriate practical level helps underline the necessary link between ideals and actions, and this is important for the development of responsibility.

Advice for Teachers and Schools

Show interest. It is very easy during the course of a busy day for teachers to brush aside the idealistic views of the teenagers around them. Finding a few minutes to listen and to ask a question can be helpful for the individuals concerned. Beyond that, however, especially when the idealistic concerns of teenagers “fit” with the subject, teachers have the opportunity to promote discussion and debate. This enables teenagers to explore their concerns as a learning community, within which they can challenge and help refine each other’s views and opinions. The presence of the teacher affords a measure of protection to those who are less willing than others to advance their idealistic views.

Refuse to give all the answers. Another shortcut to be resisted is to give “the correct answer” and to cut short teenage debate. This might save the teacher time but it will not help teenagers develop their thinking processes, so it must be regarded as suspect from an educational perspective. Asking questions, encouraging further research and exploration, introducing different perspectives to a debate, pushing students to explore further the consequences of the stance they are taking: these are all helpful ways of building on teenage idealism to advance the educational experience.

Support teenagers to pursue their idealism. It is difficult within a school community to allow every student to advance the causes about which they feel passionately, and in some cases it may simply be inappropriate. However, wherever possible, I would encourage schools and teachers to support teenagers as they pursue their journey from idealism to activism. Occasionally, such as with “The March For Our Lives” with which we began, idealism may galvanize an entire school community or generation and lead to undreamed-of outcomes. In many cases, that will not happen, but still there can be valuable experiences on many levels of teenagers learning to build on their idealism and make a difference. As Huckerbee states at the conclusion of his article, “Teenagers are going to change the world — if not today, then most certainly in the near future. The only question is how long it will take before the rest of the world takes them seriously.”

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I want to be like …

Role models are important, not just for children, but for people of all ages. It seems that being able to see some of our own areas of potential lived out by others helps us visualize better what we want to become. Role models give us something to aspire to and to seek to emulate, a target at which we can aim: “I could be like that!”

Many young children will look to their parents as their first role models, perhaps adding an early teacher before turning their attention to their favourite footballer, dancer, singer… At this stage, having a role model is often akin to hero worship, seeing only the good and wanting to imitate them in every respect.

Teenagers have their role models too, but at this stage of their lives, young people are becoming more discerning, learning to differentiate between the aspects of their role model they would like to emulate and those they would not. They will be learning to see that their heroes (including their parents and teachers) have flaws as well as desirable qualities, selecting which aspects to avoid and which to continue to seek to emulate. So, it is not unusual that their role models also become their anti-role models in other respects.

Over the years, I have found teenagers reluctant to accept the idea that others might see them as role models. Younger brothers and sisters often see teenagers as role models, and younger students sometimes see those a few grades above them within a school community as role models too. All too often, this goes unnoticed, which is a shame since being respected by others can be a source of personal affirmation for those whose actions or character has been noticed.

Tips for Parents

Either positively or negatively, being a role model is an aspect of being the parent of a teenager from which there is no escape! They know you better than you think, not just your actions and behaviours, but your motivations too. Teenagers are at the stage of learning to be critical and parents sometimes find teenage critical analysis relentless and the honesty ruthless!

Be honest with your teenager about your own strengths and weaknesses. One of the things that I have heard teenagers denounce most often and most vehemently is hypocrisy, wherever it occurs, but especially if it comes from their parents. Admitting that alongside the things you do well, there are also things you do badly or with which you struggle, and encouraging them to emulate the former rather than the latter, could be an important step in raising the level of honesty in the relationship with your teenager.

You cannot choose your teenager’s role models for them. For many parents, there will be a considerable measure of relief on discovering that their teenager’s role models are people for whom they also hold some admiration. For others, however, there might be fear of the possible outcomes of their teenager seeking to emulate role models of which they disapprove. Fighting your teenager’s choice of role models will often be a fruitless enterprise. However, especially if you have been able to talk honestly with them about yourself, as suggested above, it might be possible to extend the approach to the evaluation of others. Acknowledging that there are some aspects of their role model that you recognise as admirable, whilst there are others about which you have considerable reservations, is more likely to gain a hearing from your teenager than a wholesale dismissal of the person they hold in esteem.

Talk with your teenager about your own role models. Whether it is someone who currently inspires you, or someone you once held in esteem, talking with your teenager about how they are/were helpful to you as a role model could be a helpful step to take. Helping them see how you wanted to emulate an aspect of someone, whose flaws you also recognised at the time, could be a step towards helping them to learn more about the effective use of a role model.

Tips for Teachers

Be a role model. Teachers are in a unique position to be role models for their teenage students of a whole range of aspects. From behaviour in a professional environment, to refusing to discriminate on the grounds of gender or race, to the patience shown towards students who are struggling with a subject in which the teacher is considered an expert – students will see and learn from the example set by a quality teacher in their classroom.

Give feedback. Teachers sometimes become aware of younger students holding older students in esteem for something they have achieved or the way they have behaved. Feeding that back to the older student, quietly and in a way that protects the identity of the younger students, can have an enormous affirmative effect.

Don’t allow banter that demeans an individual for being a role model. One of the ways teenagers sometimes protect themselves is to talk down any recognition of the achievements of others in the class. By refusing to allow such banter in the classroom, the teacher can support those who are already becoming good role models for others, and also be a role model in the way they refuse to allow the loudest voice to dominate their classroom.

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