I don’t know if this is something I learned through my 20-year career working with teens. It seems to me that I have always known not to do anything for a young person that they can do themselves. Obviously, this doesn’t mean do nothing, or I couldn’t have had that 20-year career. Working with teens is actually a very important, active and engaged role.

It starts with asking questions and really listening — without judgment — to the answers. When you listen to young people, you must be fearless. Your acknowledgement and acceptance of the pain and anger, and of the wild dreams, that you hear will help the young person take an active role in changing a disliked reality (or in cre-

ating a wished-for one).

You might then be called on to share your knowledge and skills of how to act, but you need to let go of control and not nag.

“There is the obvious fact that adults have been around longer, which has presumably allowed them a respectable amount of personal growth, considerable reflection time and knowledge from the School of Hard Knocks… (But) sometimes young people don’t…want to listen to the wise advice because they must take time to experiment and fall on their face,” explained teenager McKenzie.

In my work with youth programs, I have had to do a lot of letting go — of attachment to my own ideas of what works and what’s right, to specific outcomes, to recognition for the final accomplishment. But I have always believed in the process because I treat young people “as if they are moral, reasonable, responsible and intelligent human beings, and they’ll live up to those adjectives,” according to college student Ravenna.

Another young person, Penelope, concurred: “An adult’s role in a child’s life should not be to train and discipline but to nurture their understanding of and interaction with the world around them.”

What you cannot get away from is that no matter what you do, you are teaching something.

“We are a lot more observant than most adults think; we pick up on how adults handle situations and how they interact with different people,” noted Mariah. “Sometimes we like what we see and may try to be like them, and other times we frown upon their behavior and how fake they act around certain people…Adults need to be more conscientious of how they act around young people, because it has a huge effect on how we think about and view the world and growing up.”

“‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is the wrong mindset with which to approach one’s relationships with youth,” Ravenna added.

“The examples adults provide by being their best selves is invaluable to the young people around them,” she said. “Nothing makes me want to be a better person more than being surrounded by people who I respect and whose respect I want to earn.”

Therefore, you must be authentic.

“The reason why 80 percent of pop-culture media targets the young adult is because of the vulnerable, impressionable state that most young adults experience as we mature and create our independent, realized lives,” observed teen Rose. “Genuine, caring, authentic interest and participation in a teenager’s ideas, feelings and experiences from a solid, centered adult is as crucial as water, food, fresh air and sun.”

— Yve Susskind, Ph.D., has been researching, writing and practicing in the areas of youth-adult partnership, youth involvement and student-centered education since 1990. She was the founding director of Vashon Youth Council.