By: Jared Pogue, MEd, LAPC
We live in a world full of words. Well at least I live in a world full of words. Those words are typically summarized as Accomplish. Do. Fulfill. Always. Move. Succeed. Improve. Work. These words fill our heads, my own head, everyday. I’m certain that this emphasis on our worth in life being a result of accomplishment is so socially engrained that it feels near impossible to escape. I’ve told myself these words for years and have self-inflicted shame every time I couldn’t live up to the unrealistic, short-sighted standard.
Similarly I’ve found that parents inflict this same kind of “work = worth”, time-on-task mentality on their teens. I hear time and time again that parents have to repeat themselves in order for their teens to actually listen. “I keep shouting; they’re not listening!” is the mantra I continually find parents grumbling to each other, laughing about how dumb teens must be. This system is detrimental to their relationship, creating animosity and giving an implicit, but clear message to the teen that he is only worth his daily accomplishments.
A simply stated “I love you and am proud of you” does not make up for the mass of less explicit, but still consistent messages of “work, then I will love you”. If anything it clutters the understanding of what love truly is. It makes it sound like love is an add-on in life. And teens are receptive to this. They truly begin to believe this about love and they either rebel, or worse, they fully believe this to be true. They work hard and harder in order that others will give them the add-on of love. They do whatever it takes to earn love from those around them and often can find a lot of occupational success using this tactic (a lot of CEOs and celebrities fit into this category). But they will ultimately live in personal misery, successfully pleasing others while they ultimately see their own life as despair – see Robin Williams as a fairly recent example of what this can ultimately look like.
I’m proposing that there is another way. There is a way to give your teens a proper context in which to see themselves AND to have them take responsibility for their world. Love and work do not have to be pitted against each other; after all work was originally created out of the context of love.
In part two I will go over how these two can co-exist within you and within those around you.