Teenagers and social media: A reflection on trust in 4 parts
Part 4 - Trusting your teen, or anyone
So what gives?
I can hear you in my head asking: “Are you saying that we should let our teens do whatever they want in the name of building trust?” and “Teenagers need guidance” and “Trust has to be earned”.
Yes, trust has to be earned and teenagers need guidance. Their brains are not fully developed and they lack insight into the long term consequences of their actions. Their pre-frontal cortex is under construction – and will be until they are in their mid-twenties. The pre-frontal cortex is responsible for executive functioning, which includes such things as flexible thinking, working memory, and self-control… all essential skills to safely navigate the online world.
Do you remember the definition of trust I shared in Part 3 of this essay?
“Trust is making something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else.”
In order to trust our teens, we need to make something important to us vulnerable to their actions. If we cannot do this – for whatever reason – then we should admit it and stop putting the onus of earning our trust on our teenagers. If we are unwilling or unable to make something important to us vulnerable to the actions of our teenagers, then what we are asking of them is to enter into a transaction in which we barter privileges in exchange for a certain set of behaviours.
If this is the case, is there a happy middle between having a transactional relationship with our teens and being vulnerable to their immature judgments? I think there is, in the space of boundaries.
Boundaries are what makes us different from others. Where others stop and where we begin. Physical boundaries are usually easy to see with the naked eye: the limits of our physical bodies are a set of boundaries. Where we struggle the most, especially in family relationships, is in understanding and honouring our internal boundaries: the unique mix of genetics, life experience, temperament and personality that makes us who we are “inside”. We are a lot more likely to compromise our internal boundaries than our physical boundaries. Simply defined, internal boundaries are “what you are okay with” or “what you need to feel okay.” How many times have we shut down a part of us saying “this is not okay”? How many times have we let other people, culture, or religion talk us out of not feeling okay about something? How many times have we told our children “you’re okay!” when they told us they were not? How many times have we declared something not to be a big deal when our child’s reaction showed us clearly that it was? How many times have we told our children to get over something before they were ready to?
Just like our physical bodies determine our unique appearance, our internal boundaries define our identity, our authentic self. Every time we talk ourselves out of feeling angry, mad, sad, or simply not ready, squirmy, yucky, unsure, about something, we knick at what makes us who we are. Every time we let someone else talk us out of feeling angry, mad or sad about something, we knick at what makes us who we are. “Why are you so sensitive?”, “Why do you care so much?” , “You’re doing it wrong” , “You’re crazy” , “You’re taking this the wrong way” . These comments quickly turn into “Why am I so sensitive?”, “Why do I care so much?”, “I’m doing it wrong”, “I’m crazy”, “I’m taking this the wrong way” and just like that, our boundaries, that unique mix of genetics, life experience, temperament and personality becomes a problem to be fixed, we become a problem to be fixed, a wrong to be righted.
Teaching our children to honour their boundaries is the cornerstone of helping them resist peer pressure, avoid abusive relationships, and build resiliency. And the way we teach our children to honour other people’s boundaries is by having boundaries ourselves. We teach our children to respect the other by being an “other” that they need to respect. Showing our children that we can have boundaries without losing love and connection is probably the most important relationship advice we can give them. And we give it to them by showing up with integrity, owning how we feel, and acting accordingly.
Respect for each others’ boundaries is essential to healthy relationships and it is essential to trust. One of the first things that we put on the line when we start trusting someone are our boundaries, what is okay and not okay.
When it comes to our teenagers and technology, the first thing that we put on the line are not the privileges, the phones, and the social media. It’s our own sense of what is okay and not okay, what we are comfortable with. Instead of putting the onus on them to show trustworthy behaviour, we can just come by our boundaries honestly and not make it about them. “I know you really want a phone right now, but I’m not okay with that”. Your boundaries are something important to you. And if you are too scared of what will happen if you make those boundaries vulnerable to the actions of your teens, then you are not willing, able, or ready to trust your teen. And you have to own it. Your teens might yell, they might cry, they might even call you names and threaten you. You are not yet teaching them about trust, but you are teaching them about integrity. “I’m too scared of what can happen to you if you get a Snapchat account, I’m not ready to give you this kind of exposure to social media.” And when the inevitable “You don’t trust me” comes at you, you can honestly say “not yet”, and if you are open to trust, you can ask “Show me. I may not change my mind right away, but I’m open to learning.” Your children may push back, they may try to gaslight, or draw you into justifying your boundaries, especially if you have done the same thing to them in their attempt to set boundaries. But it’s hard to overstate the importance of that shift in responsibility, especially in the parent-child relationship. Our children learn that our love is unconditional when they learn that it is not their job to make their parents feel okay.
Coming by our boundaries, our inability or unwillingness to trust our children honestly is a first step but it should be heavily qualified: trust is essential to intimacy and connection. If you never let your guard down, if your boundaries are rigid, your ability to enter in meaningful relationships with anyone — including your children — will be compromised. Your boundaries might be a reaction to events in your past, to wounds you have not healed. And while you still need to honour your defences, it doesn’t mean that you can’t work at healing the parts of you that keep other people away. If you never address your inability or unwillingness to trust your teens, to make something important to you vulnerable to their actions, they will soon be old enough to realize that there is no “there” there. When your boundaries consistently prevent you from entering into meaningful relationships with people you care about, when you feel lonely and isolated, you may decide to heal some of that scar tissue. It’s up to you: choose your own adventure. Just don’t make the people in your life responsible for earning a trust that you are not able to give.