This kind of thing resonates with me and then I check the comments and it's just people being like "god young people are so STUPID lol" and it hurts a bit!
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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I'm sad that so many people had such a shit time being 15.
"I'm 20 and this is deep".
Become an actual adult and you will realize how ridiculously difficult it is to take some uneducated teenager's radicalism with any grain of seriousness and respect. Even if you try to because you remember what it felt like not to be taken seriously, and you don't want to be that adult..
I'm 35, and I'm perfectly able to engage with the thought process behind the opinion, no matter how radical. All they want is to be treated with respect.
Contrast with “real adults” who e.g. continue to trash the planet because they can't even think of slightly decreasing the amount by which they enrich themselves. Those I don't respect. They are the real radicals.
If a 15 year old says “so much good can happen when a few billionaires kick the bucket”, I'm right there with them.
The type of kids you're describing is not what "I'm x age and this is deep" is talking about.
That depends entirely on who is speaking.
Man, that is not what most 15 year olds are saying. You have an idealized fantasy in your head. Most of them are just spewing obscenities, racism and stupid incel/manosphere shit over discord. Just like we were over IRCs, ventrillo and TeamSpeak.
Most kids are fucking stupid.
I had Climate Change anxiety when I was 15. I'm an adult now and I have crippling Climate Change anxiety and can't do anything without feeling guilty. I hate the adults that sabotage my education because they decided I had a learning disability. If anyone said problematic shit, it was my conservative history teacher.
Nah, I was a shitter at 15. I know now that the thoughts and feelings I had held no real water and I was just an idiot. Now, with everything I've learned and experienced, I would absolutely tell my 15 year old self to sit down and stfu.
Hello fellow shithead. I am 37 now, I have two kids, and my biggest worry is identifying the shitty, stupid behaviors I had as a kid, and trying to find them in my own kids, and figuring out what, if anything, I can do to prevent them from making the stupid mistakes I made. They are not even close to 15 at this point, so I've got some years to prepare.
That's not today that I don't at least appreciate, just a little, what the OP is saying. I can't forget that my kids are humans with their own ideas. I don't want to stifle their creativity and their growth. But what they cannot possibly understand, and what I'm continuing to learn to this day, is just how big an impact some small decisions can have.
If you have to try not to forget that you're probably already a cunt. Having open eyes is enough.
Counterpoint: grow up and learn to say no to your 15 year old self. "I'm just a kid and life is a nightmare!" is only a waypoint on the path to maturity, and immaturity is poorly disguised by pleas to "please somebody think of the children!" Children are welcome to have all their own thoughts and feelings, but having thoughts and feelings doesn't entitle or qualify anybody to amplify them into leadership and policy.
15 year olds are idiots. But like so are my coworkers. The difference is that 15 year olds have an excuse and might learn from their fuck ups.
Pretty much this. I've always tried to treat kids like dumb lil adults, but with more potential!
Man... The amount of comments saying that kids are dumb at fifteen and I didn't know what I was doing at fifteen are all falsely equating respect with success and knowledge. Kids literally don't know what their doing because they are figuring it out. They're not dumb, they have a lot to learn. And most want to.
Kids need respect for being who they are. You give most kids real respect and watch them do everything they can to live up to it. They need real connection and mentors. When you give high support then you can set high expectations.
The difference is you knowing that you don't know, and an average teenager feeling like they know it all, while they know about as much as nothing.
You've got it all backwards. Adults are the ones who think they know everything. Don't mistake confidence for arrogance. If you raise a kid right, then they'll confidently do dumb shit, knowing they'll learn from it and you'll keep them safe. That's healthy development. But you look at the adults who never take risks, never consider different ideas, refuse to learn tech or politics because they think they won't get it. That's low self esteem, but it's also a form of arrogance. The arrogant belief that you are already the best you can possibly be. That you have no growing left to do. Even if you think you're the dumbest person alive, thinking you're the smartest version of yourself is arrogance.
It's all the Dunning-Kruger effect. We are cursed to continually fail on the side of you don't know what you don't know.
I had this idea in my teens that we really needed a common sense brigade. Small groups of people jury style that would just go from place to place and say hey that's stupid Don't do that. Because I could see right from wrong I assumed that we just needed a bunch of people that could also see right from wrong to go around and lead the idiots to reasonable decisions. It was very easy for my 15-year-old mine to see black and white everywhere. It's all good versus evil and smart versus stupid.
Many decades later, I know grasp that most of the world's problems are because people tries to fit everything into black and white.
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I thought like this when I was 15.
Then in my twenties looking back at how I acted when I was a teen I thought "I was really dumb as a kid, I wish I had more supervision from a responsible adult."
Now in my thirties looking back at how I acted when I was in my twenties I think "I was really dumb as a kid, I wish I had more supervision from a responsible adult."
being dumb and worthy of respect are not mutually exclusive.
Kids today deserve the option to delete everything about the from the Internet at some point in their 20s. No one needs video evidence of that phase.
My bro has a rule: no public photos of his kids, ever. Shared to family, privately, only.
They're just not old enough to sign away their privacy.
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Supervision doesn't have to be patronizing or demeaning. A 15 year-old isn't dumb anymore, merely ignorant and impulsive which does tend to make them shitheads but that's kind of a separate problem.
Most adults are shockingly bad at understanding and explaining their own thoughts and rationales, including to other adults. So when interacting with a teenager, they either throw their hands up or fall back on "shut up and do as I say" as one would with a 5 year-old.
That's where teens can be failed really badly by the adults around them because they are at an age where unlike children they are mostly/fully equipped to understand "adult" advice, and will not blindly follow orders anymore. But they also need way more advice, guidance and explanation than an actual adult. I think that's where the post is getting at. Don't forget that teens are kids, but don't treat them like they are subhuman or lacking in agency.
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Was that supposed to stop after 15?
Because as a woman-type creature, born and raised, that has been the whole life experience so far…
And I’m more than twice that age now..
Having a baby face+being short will also do that to ya. Like, brother, we are the same damn age, why are you treating me like a child
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Bet, I think that's a really good point and a crucial reminder for some people.
I am gonna need 15 year olds to be 33% less annoying, though, in return. I mean, I was incredibly annoying at 15 and I get it's hard not to be but goddamn meet me part way here
I used to work with a lot of teens at their first job, and I found that I got along with them really well when I'd tell them that the biggest difference between them and me was simply that I'd been on this rock a few years longer than they have. If you're 20 and they're 15, then you've experienced 33% more shit than they have.
I told them that I wasn't gonna tell them what to do with their lives, but I'd offer my own experiences to help them make more informed choices. It's like with little kids: you can tell them not to do something dangerous, but if you explain why they shouldn't do it, you'll get better results. At least with the 15+ crowd, you usually don't have to worry about them sticking forks into the electrical sockets or something.
I don't think I started sticking metal into electrical outlets until I was 14 or 15..
Bzzzzzaaaap
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So. I was raised by a domestic violence lawyer. She was always really passionate about her job, about fighting abuse.
When I was in middle school, I was abused myself. A teacher. I knew what was happening. I knew what they said to do about - tell a trusted adult. They would know what to do.
My mother, the domestic violence lawyer, always so passionate about stopping abuse. She didn't believe me. I was just a dumb kid, and kids make things up all the time.
I realized there's not much a kid can do to protect themself. "Tell a trusted adult" is the solution, not because adults are more responsible, but because they actually have fucking rights. If an adult has a bad job, they can get up and quit. If I tried to walk away from school, I'd be beaten.
None of the adults wanted to listen to me, so what could I do? Jack fucking shit. I had that teacher for three years until I moved on to high school. I still have the trauma.
Treat kids like people. I don't want to hear any of this shit about how stupid they are. They know more about their own life experience than you do. Listen to them
Dude... That's so depressing to read, I'm so sorry. I'm sure it wouldn't help, and I'm pretty certain I can guess the answer, but did you ever tell your mum when you were older? Are you still in contact with her? Can't blame you if you're not, I probably would go NC myself.
I remember being 15. That's why I'm alright with treating 15-yos as idiot kids
The older I get the more I realize everyone is an idiot. I'm an idiot, everyone I work with is an idiot. Politicians are idiots. Celebrities are idiots. Old, young, doesn't matter. We all float down here and you will all get treated like the idiot I am 🙃
I'm confused, why?
I'm 50 and I don't think I'm an idiot. I don't think I was an idiot when I was 40. I don't think I was an idiot when I was 30. I don't think I was an idiot when I was 20. I don't think most people around me are idiots. Somehow we must have a different definition of "idiot".
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I get compliments on my kids behavior so often. People beg me for my secrets. It's simple. I have treated them with respect as an individual person since day one. We only use our words to communicate and we never raise our voices. We apologize when we make mistakes and make it right. We talk about our feelings and work towards compromise. All these rules apply to kids and adults equally.
I grew up with spankings and being told "I'll give you something to cry about if you don't shape up" and "just do as you're told, no questions". I won't repeat those behaviors.
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People are always surprised in a good way when kids like me so much and quickly.
It is not hard, I just treat them like a real person, I respect them and actively listen to them.
Kids are so much smarter than people give them credit for and it is not hard to do.
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