This is going to be a rant, but I don’t know how long how it will be.  It comes from hearing so many people talk about the passage of time.  Specifically, in relation to teenagers while the speakers are adults.  I’ll admit that I’m guilty of thinking this way in the past, but I’m trying to change my perspective.

So, the statements that triggers this thought revolve around teenagers dealing with hard situations.  It can range from minor to major, but I’ve found most adults talk about how their teen years will go faster.  When you look back, it does feel like they were gone in the blink of an eye.  Maybe this is to say that there are greater challenges when you become an adult, which could be true.  Yet, this really minimizes whatever a teenager is handling at the time.  I’m sure all of us didn’t ace those years and ran into situations that stressed us out.

The sense of time passing caught my attention more than anything else.  I decided to ask my son if it felt like his teen years were going quickly.  He said that was crazy because all of the stuff he’s been facing make it feel like every day takes forever.  Even if he wasn’t dealing with hardships, the time he exists in isn’t going by as quick as us adults seem to think it does.  A blink to him is just a second and not 4-6 years.  This makes the suggestion that things will be done and over before you know it rather cruel.  It may even come off as telling teenagers that they have to grow up quickly, which I know some people will support because they have an issue with childhood.

In some situations, I feel like this is used to be dismissive towards the feelings and stress of teenagers.  By believing they are living through a time that goes fast, you think their trials and hardships are minor.  It can’t be major if it’s happening in such a short, simple period of their lives.  Why take them seriously if that’s the case?  This can lead to people ignoring pleas for help until the teenager is at a dangerous point, which can include drugs, alcohol, unprotected sex, criminal activity, and suicide.  When a teen comes to you for help, the suggestion that they have to bear it for a few years is a massive slap in the face to them.

Part of me wonders if this is because so many adults hit a point in their lives when they don’t feel like they can change their situations.  Bad job, bad marriage, bad health, or whatever is taken as things one can no longer escape.  Not without major sacrifice and risk, which many adults won’t attempt.  The only option is to push on and hope an outside force, like time, changes things.  So, they handle the hardships of teenagers with the same fatalistic mentality.  Unfortunately, teenagers don’t realize this and it comes off as minimizing or dismissing their pain.

My suggestion for anyone faced with a teenager asking for help is to listen.  Don’t try to tell them to grin and bear it.  Try to help them find an action they can take to ease their stress, which doesn’t depend on waiting.  While you feel that their teen years will go quickly, they are living them at this moment.  Every day is an actual day to them and not part of a fractured memory that doesn’t contain every minute of activity.  Understand that they have a sense of urgency because they are in whatever situation has them stressed.  You may have been in the same one, which took years to get out of since nobody helped you when you needed it.  Be the person your teenage self needed to get them through the rough patches.