My Changes by Mark Oestreicher

Author:Mark Oestreicher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Array
Publisher: Zondervan

41. WHY ADULTS MIGHT DOWNPLAY YOUR EMOTIONS

Have you ever been around a little kid who’s having a hard time describing his emotions? He might stomp on the ground and make a really serious face; but when you ask him what’s wrong, he answers something like, “I don’t know! I just feel all…all jumbly inside” (or some other made-up word like that).

A child makes up a word to describe what he’s feeling because he doesn’t have the vocabulary to make sense of his world. And if he says he feels “jumbly”—or “fizzy” or “squishy” or “soupy” or some other funny word—then, at the very least, you’ll probably smile. But it’s more likely you’ll giggle a bit or even laugh right in his face. Meanie!

Put yourself in the kid’s shoes and make both people in the example 10 years older. You are yourself (ooh, that’s a stretch!), and there’s some adult watching you or listening to you deal with your new emotions. She sees you angrily stomping around the kitchen because your favorite cereal is all gone. Or she sees you giggling and whispering with your friends with the kind of excitement that only middle school girls are capable of feeling. Or she sees you moping around all the time, as though the world has come to an end.

Adults don’t typically remember very well what it’s like to have middle school emotions—feelings that are all over the place and out of control and, well, weird. So when adults hear a middle schooler say, “I’m in love!” most think (or say), Uh, you don’t know what love is yet. In most cases they’re not trying to be mean. They’ve just forgotten what it’s like to be your age. (Hey, we hate to admit it, but sometimes we—Marko and Scott—are just like “them.”) Adults don’t realize you’re experiencing love like you’ve never felt before—so it’s really huge to you!

Yeah, that’s why adults sometimes make fun of or downplay teenage emotions. If an adult says something like, “What you’re feeling isn’t real,” you can respond—politely, of course—with, “Well, it’s real to me.”

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