Just Some Mad Ass Kids

The way our parents grew up was different on how their parents raised them. The world was different. It was about “you don’t discuss this or that, you keep this to yourself, you don’t show this (express) yourself. They faced challenges and hardships that were extreme for their generation and time yet the world they once knew no longer exists. These kids who have grown up into parents are trying to raise their modern day children the way they were raised or lack thereof and it doesn’t 100% apply. Discipline is still discipline regardless and shouldn’t be skipped around, but I’m not talking about that. Kids have to learn a new set of skills on how to survive in the world they live in.

This is 2014, not 1950-something. I hear all the time about kids having “mental illness” which very much is possible with some of us. But I personally have talked to a few people who are in the same age bracket as me and we’ve all come to the conclusion that there is a gap in communication and understanding with us and our parents. We have been addressed by our loved ones as having “something wrong” with us when we openly and candidly spill our pains, sorrows, and frustrations with them. It’s dismissal and rejection that causes us to turn away believing maybe there is something wrong with us but more importantly we’re not received by those we care about in confidence and vulnerability. That leaves a scar that ones like us bear and continue to hold on to without any resolution.

I’m also looking on the other side of the coin to understand that perhaps it does take others who “get it” to support and connect with us because that’s the only way we’re going to be the best we can be in our lives-as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, granddaughters and so forth. Maybe the generation gap is so large that it is impossible for our parents to be a source of help, hope, and security for us- it takes a little bit more. We may just have to help each other, instead of ripping each other a part YOLO-ing and middle finger up-ing each other. Turning our backs on each other and separating into our elitist groups of entitlement and superiority will be the death and destruction of the future of our children. The signs are there if we only pay attention to them and correct them while we still have time. If we’re not willing to do that then I guess we’re saying to hell with everyone including those we love.

It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks but it’s not too late to change the youth around us. Iyanla Vanzant speaks of “pathology” and how we continue a process of bad behaviors and hurtful tactics that we pass on to each other (potentially in our families). Ever since I learned of this term it is part of my dialog with discussing the perils of pain many of us continue to endure. If we don’t face our demons now then when will we? They will still be there affecting the lives of our (my generation) children and children’s children. There is a MAJOR difference between behavioral issues and mental illness issues even though both are so much alike. If we eliminate closeness, bonding, and affirmation from our daily communications with these kids and not discipline them properly when they are “acting up” and showing out then we’re creating uncontrollable, fearless, immoral monsters. I’m a firm believer that it starts at home. We need to do a trial and error there first to make a diagnosis from that standpoint. Instead I’m hearing left and right about a child presumed to be “mentally ill” for the way they drawn in, rage out -having these wild disorders developed from feeling alone, misunderstood, and unheard. 

Also until we address Bullying as a source of destruction to the human spirit in this day and age we will never get a grasp on what’s really killing today’s children. Nobody wants to feel alone, especially with a hurtful secret. It’s toxic and as it stores in the mind of the afflicted it becomes an internal poison that breaks down the soul of the individual. Meaning they are a walking emotional breakdown! But because we live in a society where you’re deemed weird or odd for showing your emotions outwardly (even in 2014) something is potentially “wrong” with the individual when many of us have our own problems keeping our emotions within. It’s truly what needs to be focused on and it will take more than 1 or 2 people to do alone. It takes a whole body of people to change their way of thinking. However way we can make that possible it definitely needs to happen. To speak from the place of mistreatment, abuse, belittlement, ostracization,   

 

What sparked this entry was Katie Couric’s talk show – 3pm today with its first segment on a young Caucasian boy whose parents didn’t know what to do with his emotional/behavioral issues and deemed him mentally ill (experts/themselves).