Square Pegs in Round Holes

Adolescents are adolescents are adolescents. George W. Bush was one, as was Plato, Einstein, Attila the Hun, Marie Antoinette, Ghandi and every other adult to ever walk the earth. Even animals struggle with adolescents, trying to leave the den too early, trying to hunt on their own, leaving the safety of the pack. You'd think that after so many thousands of years, after countless generations and so many billions of teens passing through, we'd be used to process by now.

America leads the world in adolescent dysfunction, yet I've learned that the great majority of the time teens have very good reasons for why and how they act. It may not be appropriate, but it does make sense. Besides the continuing breakdown of the American family unit, which helped create the need for foster and kinship care in the first place, modern teens are struggling with shifting societal values, the loss of initiations, the longest adolescence in history, and the least actual teen responsibility on the planet.

For almost 15 years I have been working with at-risk and high-risk teens, although if you follow teen statistics you've probably come to join me in thinking every teen in America is at risk nowadays. Many teen models and/or programs continue to try and break the spirit of adolescence, trying to get those "square peg" kids we're too familiar with into the System's "round hole" mentality.

Countless youth I've known have tried to explain how they just don't fit the one and only model open to them. The most damaging aspect of this trend has been in the shame, blame, guilt and judgement they inherit with all that 'failure.' The success I enjoy with bad boys and girls comes from a simple philosophy. Each youth is an individual, not a number, a DSM diagnosis, or a case file. If the program doesn't fit the youth, then I try desperately to make the program fit the youth. If the square peg doesn't fit into the round hole, change the shape of the hole!!

Many people have called me 'enabling' for working with the kids rather than making them always fit my adult needs. Nothing could be further from the truth. A thousand boys will tell you about my boundaries and expectations. My finesse comes from not forcing the adolescent to fight me, from giving him or her another way to look at success. The adolescent spirit cannot and should not be squelched. Adolescence is about growth, about change, and we adults and parents should be using every resource we have to help youth succeed, not just keep proving how bad they are.

What does this get you? Respect! And if a teen respects you, then you've both got a chance to succeed. When he or she sees you taking grief from the System for them, they'll match that energy back. Do you really want your teen to succeed, or just follow orders? Should adolescence be difficult out of principle, or as smooth a path as we can make for them? If you keep running into the adolescent 'brick wall,' perhaps its time to try a new path with a different shape. Good luck….

Originally published in the California State Foster Parent Association Newsletter