Welcome to Youth Ministry: Understanding Teenagers
In all your interactions with teenagers, there’s one rule of thumb to keep in mind: They’re no longer children, and they’re not yet adults. That’s it. Adolescence is all about the in-between as young people navigate the transition from childhood to adulthood.
(this excerpt from Graham Stanton’s book, Welcome to Youth Ministry: The Why and How of Serving Young People with the Word of God is published with permission from YouthWorks Publishing.)
Teenagers are no longer children. That’s true biologically, with most of them deep in the throes of puberty. It’s also true culturally, as teenagers are given more responsibility and autonomy than they’ve had before. For some young people, their teenage years leave them missing the carefree abandon of childhood. Some may be anxious about new-found challenges; others are relishing the adventure. Either way, the reality is that they are no longer children.
For most teenagers, no longer being children means that they really don’t want you to treat them as if they are! The first implication of this rule of thumb is to make sure that you never talk down to them. Be careful to not underestimate their ability. And don’t let them underestimate their own ability either. It’s often true that young people will rise or fall in order to meet your expectations. If you treat them like children, they’ll descend to meet your expectations. If you set them a challenge, and support them to succeed, you’re more likely to see what they’re capable of.
Teenagers are no longer children, but they’re also not yet adults. This is most clearly evident in the social roles they get to fulfil. Most teenagers are living at home under the care and authority of parents or carers. Most are contained in compulsory education in school systems with adults in charge. And all of them have various legal limits on what they can and can’t do that change as they age, such as driving, drinking alcohol, voting or getting married. Just like the move from childhood, being ‘not yet’ an adult can be a source of freedom or frustration, often both at the same time.
As adults who get to walk alongside these not-yet adults, youth leaders are in a wonderful position to help young people take up the opportunities and overcome the challenges that adolescence brings. The technical word for this is the ‘adult guarantor’. An adult guarantor is someone who believes in you before there is good reason for doing so. Someone who is in your corner. Your pit crew. Your cheer squad. As a youth leader, you have the opportunity to be an adult guarantor that provides teenagers with the support and encouragement they need to thrive amid whatever adolescence throws at them. Teenagers need an army of committed adult guarantors alongside and around them.
As you engage with teenagers, keep these two thoughts in mind. Be sympathetic when they’re finding the step-up to adulthood a challenge, and be encouraging (and be encouraged) when they’re ready to spread their wings and fly. Help them enjoy the times when they get to live in the freedom that comes from not bearing the weight of adult responsibility. Be ready to help them deal with the frustrations of not yet being able to do the things they would like or be the person they are becoming.
A challenge to meet
One of the biggest challenges of adolescence is the psychological processes of identity formation. That is, much of a teenager’s life is taken up with the task of working out how they will answer the question, ‘Who am I?’ This is the task that all that brain development has been preparing a teenager for. It’s like the brain is being renovated so that it’s ready to take on the challenges of adult life. With their new and improved brains, teenagers are developing the ability to think about themselves in a new way. Suddenly young people become concerned about how they appear to others. They start being worried about what other people think of them. They wonder whether their contribution matters. All of these kinds of concerns are signs that young people are moving beyond childhood and getting ready to take on the challenges and opportunities of adult life.
The big questions of adolescent identity formation are:
• Who am I? This is the task of developing a sense of self. The teenage brain enables young people to become self-aware and to start building a sense of self-confidence and stability.
• Where do I belong? This is the task of social identity. Teenagers are beginning to work out how they relate to others, where they fit in the human community.
• What do I have to contribute? This is the question of personal agency. Teenagers are working out what their gifts and abilities are, what they have that they can bring to their community.
There’s definitely a challenge to be met here. There can be plenty of heartache and angst and struggle involved in being a teenager. But there’s also all the excitement of discovery and adventure for anyone who’s willing to join in. That’s why we want to surround teenagers with support and encouragement.
What teenagers most need from adults during this time is for someone to believe in them! Teenagers need adults who know that learning new things means they’re going to make mistakes along the way. Will you be the kind of adult who is ready to pick them up when they fall? Will you be quick to remind them of what they’ve accomplished as well as quick to help them see what they need to keep working on? Will you help them celebrate where they’re at and keep walking with them into what comes next?
Being a support and encouragement for a young person doesn’t mean that you don’t put any boundaries on their behaviour; quite the opposite. As teenagers are exploring the limits of their capacity, they’re going to need space to grow, but they need to be able to learn how to manage new freedom and responsibility within clear limits. Teenagers grow best with clear expectations and firm consequences.
It’s often the case that young people will want to test the boundaries and keep pushing and pushing against the limits you set, but it’s a mistake to think that you need to give way. Often it’s by pushing against the boundaries that young people are trying to work out who cares for them and who doesn’t. Adults who care for teenagers are those who care enough to set a boundary on their behaviour. After all, the person who says there are no boundaries on what I do or say is a person who doesn’t care what I do. And someone who doesn’t care what I do isn’t far off a person who doesn’t care who I am.
Teenagers need supportive, encouraging and firm adults around them. Ideally, we want all teenagers to have a community of support, a team of committed adults who are prepared to walk alongside them and share in the adventure.
Adolescence is a challenge, so be committed to surrounding them with support and encouragement.
ABOUT relationships
Teenagers need adults who come alongside them with compassion, support, encouragement, thankfulness and readiness to learn. The best way to do this is to be people who can relate to teenagers in ways that offer Acceptance, build Belonging, promote Ownership, develop Understanding and are anchored in Trust: A.B.O.U,T. Good youth ministers have ABOUT relationships.
· Relationships of acceptance are ones where young people can be themselves without pretence and share anything without fear of rejection.
· In relationships of belonging, young people feel confident that they have a meaningful place within their relationships and communities.
· A young person has ownership in a relationship when they exercise the freedom and responsibility to make their own decisions.
· In relationships of understanding, young people feel that others ‘get’ them or are at least attempting to.
· In relationships of trust, young people have confidence that others have their best interests at heart.
(Read more about ABOUT relationships in the ‘Your Story Research Report’ from convergeoceania.com/yourstory).
Generally speaking
Alongside those big ideas, there’s one more generalisation to keep in mind: every teenager wants to be treated as a unique individual rather than lumped into a box based on broad generalisations. Which is of course a generalisation; nevertheless, it’s very helpful to remember. But in the end, your job as a youth leader isn’t to understand teenagers. Your job is to know this teenager, to know these particular young people whom God has given to you to serve. Note this verse from 1 Thessalonians 2:8: ‘Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well’.
The very best thing that you can do to understand young people is to pay attention to the person who is in front of you. Spend time listening to and talking with the young people in your ministry. When you listen to young people, the first benefit is that you’ll get to know them better and so be better placed to know how best to serve them. The second benefit is that they’ll appreciate you paying attention to them. The more young people feel heard, the more they’ll feel valued; the more they feel valued, the more they’ll know they belong.