To My Teens: I Can't Love You Any More, From: Your Teacher

HOW MY TEENS SHOW UP

One of the hardest thing about teaching and parenting teens is the fact that you never know which kid is going to show up on any given day. You know what I’m talking about. The personality and mood swings can give you whiplash. If you’re like me, you know that your teen can be 5 different people in the space of an hour. Take getting ready for school in the morning. You might encounter grumpy teen, excited teen, know-it-all teen, stressed teen, and needy teen all before you get in the car.

And for you teachers – wow. When you multiply the number of students you have and then think about all the different ways they show up in your class – we’re talking thousands of personalities that that you have to navigate. Including figuring out which one each student is experiencing at the particular moment in time they’re in your class.

If you try to drill down into it, it can be exhausting and overwhelming.

But here’s the thing.

You don’t have to drill down into it.

Here’s why.

Because if YOU show up consistently, standing in your values and rocking the whole being a grown up thing?

It doesn’t matter how your teens show up – because you’ve got their backs.

How do you know if this is something you’re doing?

Have you chosen HOW you want to show up? Because you get to!

Do you know what you believe and stand for?

Have you clearly communicated your values and expectations to your teens?

Do you take responsibility for your own emotions, words, reactions, etc.? Or do you ever blame your students or children for how you’re feeling? (Not sure? Check out Episode 16.)

Do your boundaries and responses fluctuate based on your mood? Or maybe depending on which teen you’re dealing with? Or your physical state, like your hunger or exhaustion levels?

Do you have reactive energy or consistent energy?

Are you an emotional regulator for your teens?

Are you immovable when it comes to the way you communicate how your value your teens?

Nothing you do or don’t do, say or don’t say, can make me love you any more OR any less.

These things make a difference.

Teens are REALLY good at telling what kind of energy you’re bringing to the table. They can read your emotions, and they draw pretty accurate conclusions. Recently, I was talking to one of my teens, who shared this about a teacher:

“She REALLY loves our class.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She shrugged and said, “You can tell that she enjoys being around us and she doesn’t talk to us like we’re little kids. She really listens to us.”

I chewed over that for a while, because when I think about the teachers who positively impacted me, that’s EXACTLY how I would describe them – they really liked us (my fellow students and me) and they treated us with dignity and respect.

Something that’s so simple, but not easy at all.

When we can show up as consistent, mature, steady people in the lives of our teens, it doesn’t matter how they show up – because it’s not about how they’re acting or what kind of energy they have. They can’t throw anything at us that will change who we are or how we stand in our values.

Now, I realize that is a bold, idealistic statement. And I know that it’s, literally, impossible to show up that way 100% of the time. But it can characterize you.

So, where are you with your teens? Do you struggle to be someone who is characterized as “consistent” or “steady”. “Rock solid?” Are you characterized by showing up based on your mood or circumstances?

Because that reactive way of showing up? It’s developmentally appropriate for our teens. But not for us. And our goal is to lead the way for them, and model how to show up as adults.

I was in a FB group I belong to recently, and someone was talking about the hard day they had with their 6th grade class. She described how she had HAD it with one kid in particular. He was being silly, making awful choices, disrupting the class in ways that were beyond frustrating. She shared that she finally burst out at him, “Why are you being so childish?!?” Apparently, he stopped, eyebrows creased in confusion, and said, “Ms. So and So, I am literally a child.”

She had the grace to laugh about it, and to let it be a reminder that as grown up as they look and sound when they have their well-behaved personalities on, they are not adults. But we are.

So let’s show up as the grown ups.

One way to do that is to dig deep into what it means for your students and kids to be developmentally appropriate. That’s what I’m doing with you guys in my 5 part FB Live series.

We’re two weeks in to the 5 secrets to understanding your teens and how to respond to them. This training will TOTALLY help you show up as a grown up, because I’m spelling out all the things that are developmentally appropriate in teens – especially in the classroom. Hope you catch the replay of those on my FB page, facebook.com/theishgirl

And be sure to sign up for the workbook so you can follow along. You can get that at theishgirl.com/freetraining. Don’t forget to join me next Tuesday, Feb 25, at 6 CST for session 3.

See you there!