Are you having unbelievable problems with your teenage kids or, heaven for bid, those in their early 20s?
It seems more people are coming to my office these days with horror stories about the behavior of their troubled youth.
I can say I have some experience in this department myself. The question is, is this new? Teens have always been troubled – except, it seems in the 1940s-50s, when the word ‘teenager’ didn’t really exist.
What seems new to me is the depth of anger in teens whose lives simply don’t reflect the need for so much rebellion. The phrase: ‘Rebel without a cause’ comes to mind, but the accounts of some of this behavior exceeds anything that used to shock us back in the early 60s; and seems to be more and more prevalent in what we would normally consider to be good, loving and supportive homes.
How much are we expected to tolerate from our youngsters?
We bring them into the world – granted, there is usually some kicking and screaming involved – then we stay awake nights worrying about how to stop them hurting themselves and thinking up different ways to make sure we give them all the things we didn’t have, and as soon as they decide we are not cool or intelligent, or experienced enough to be worthy, we tolerate all manner of abuse. Why? Because somewhere it says, Thou Shalt not eat thy kids?
Media is feeding this madness with adverts about young kids sitting in the backs of cars apparently tortured by the fact it’s not the latest model with interactive flat screen tv in the back. This is reason enough to brand your parents lame.
They use language that is ‘bleeped’ out of prime time television, in an attempt to protect them from hearing it in the first place, and then they look at you with the disgust of someone who just scraped something nasty off their boots! At what age is one entitled to say: “Enough! Go live somewhere else!” No, seriously, what age? Thirteen? Sixteen? Twenty-two??
Hypnotherapy can sometimes help. It certainly does, in the short-term, but if the source of the issue is not addressed, the same trigger is re-stimulated time and time again. Sadly, that can be as simple as a tone in a mother’s voice, or the look on a father’s face.
A better strategy is for the primary carer, whoever that might be, mother or father, be desensitized under hypnosis, so they don’t experience the heart stopping reaction from this behavior, the spiralling anxiety that leads to sleepless nights and depression. They are the ones who experience the real abuse. They are the ones whose spirits are truly being crushed. Have you noticed have quickly a kid bounces back just after he/she has levelled you with some emotional grenade. A text from a friend and mins later they have forgotten everything. YOU on the other hand, need a drink!
