Tackling students in their teens

The crossroad of freedom and constraints is where teenagers find themselves. A mind filled with confusion, dreams, desires, curiosity, responsibilities and a constant conflict with self; these are inherent traits in this phase of life. It’s thus needless to say that dealing with teenagers requires not just tactfulness, but also a deep understanding of their psyche. As parents or teachers, how much time have we invested in investigating the reasons behind the erratic behavior of our students or children? Most likely not much, mainly because we are often so stung by their behavior that we end up in a fit of anger or feel hurt. All of this culminates into our grossly misunderstanding the teen brigade and this is exactly where the generation gap comes into being, threatening to widen by the day, alienating them from us for good.

Teenage embarks the onset of adolescence, which typically brings with it physical changes. During this time the teenagers who are slowly growing into adults, suffer from low self esteem. The low self esteem can be attributed to many factors. However the important ones are, firstly they find it difficult to accept them as they are. Second, our change in attitude towards them; since now we neither treat them as kids nor as adults, which adds in to their confusion. The responsibilities that are thrust on them all of a sudden also make them withdraw or rebel. We as teachers or parents also face an equally tough time trying to figure out ways to handle them best. One very important thing that we can implement on our part is to refrain from threatening them with the consequence of failure and stop blaming them with tarnishing school’s name or the family name for their conduct. By threatening them with a probable failure in future as a consequence of their present actions, we only weaken their self confidence further and somewhere down the line we unknowingly trigger the rebel in them. Talking to them one on one, sharing with them some experiences of our teenage times gives them a sense of being accepted. This exercise also imparts the knowledge that they are not the only ones on the face of this earth who are going through the experience of being teenagers.

Anger is another very important aspect prominent in most teenager’s behavior and actions and needs to be met with the right combination of gentleness and authoritativeness. The key to tackling the teen brigade is to treat them as equals and create a bond so that they come back to us with their problems and issues. Conscious and true efforts on our part will ensure that they do not tread the darker side of life and also help curb truancy.