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Don't tell teenagers where to go
(by Barbara Christian - November 19, 2008)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Don't tell teenagers where to go
Teenagers. If you have ever had one of these creatures around the house, then you know how they can try the patience.
And if you are of a certain age, you may have empathized with the woman who stood up in a public meeting the other night and said she doesn't like the kids who hang out in the Chagrin Falls Shopping Plaza parking lot, because they are loud, obnoxious and rude. Especially to older people.
Then a younger woman, a mom, joined the discussion and concluded that what kids around here need is a place to go.
I nearly laughed out loud. All that she missed saying was that what they need is a "teen center." When or where have we all heard that before? Oh, try every generation of well-intentioned albeit naive parents who were ever faced with raising kids in one of our cloistered suburban school districts.
Question: How come it's always the parents who think the kids need a place to go. It's wishful hoping on their part, and here's why. Maybe they just want them someplace, anyplace where they don't have to see their sullen faces and listen to complaints about what boring lives they lead.
Yet another woman at the meeting described teenagers as "at a very challenging age." No, Mount Everest is challenging. There is nothing that compares to raising teenagers. You can't blame parents for wanting to put them someplace. There is no turning them back in to the hospital at that age.
Back in the day, "someplace where kids could go" was sought after like the Holy Grail. Attempts to start a teen center met with limited success and were soon gone.
In fact, as we recall, a new chapter of the Y was formed out here to answer the need which was epitomized by a notorious house on Bellview Street that had become that generation's hangout.
The fact that no teen center remains in existence today is testimony that it did not work then and will likely not work now either.
That should not be viewed as a putdown of the aforementioned well-intentioned adults. It comes from a long view of the past and the erroneous conclusion that life would be perfect, if only there was "some place where kids can go." In short, those who do not know the history of teen centers in the Chagrin Valley are doomed to repeat their quest for a teen center.
The reason should be obvious. Kids do not want to go to a place where adults are around watching and listening.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Give them a place to go, and they will avoid it like homework. They will say its "dorky" and make the "L" (loser) sign with their index finger and thumb.
Another lady at that same meeting hit the nail on the head and the audience's funny bone when she said no self-respecting teen would want to be anywhere near adults. It has always been thus, and so it will ever be.
Chagrin Falls lifer Jim Vittek, a retired high school counselor, wrote a book about his teen hangout in the 1960s. It was titled "Under the Popcorn Shop." No mystery there as to where it was located. Note that it is where no adult would ever try to get to.
Those moms at that meeting were absolutely right. Their teens need a place to go, but it has to be a place the kids choose. Like a dark corner of the shopping plaza parking lot.
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