Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Chemjohn Payne. This week I wanted to talk about the deeper emotions of adolescence. I sometimes think of this as the artesian emotions, that deep, deep water beneath our feet, the emotions of adolescence.
You know, when children start growing up through that kind of early childhood, middle childhood, the tween years, and they get to like 12, 13, particularly 14, 15, to that third phase of childhood, the teen years, there is for many kids, there's a noticeable shift in their expressiveness. I mean, it's clear, isn't it, for most kids. It's like, it's like, I sometimes think of it as a little spring bubbling and bubbling along when they're little, and there is the spring, and it's gorgeous, and it's beautiful.
And then in the tween years, it rushes a little bit more, but it's still there, and you'll still see the spring. But then in adolescence, it's almost like it dips down below the surface. The water that had been on the surface now moves down into that more artesian flow.
It goes into almost like an underground water flow. And, you know, that metaphor is perhaps an interesting one, because water that is artesian, that is flowing down deep beneath our feet, is actually gathering content, it's gathering minerals, it's exploring, it's moving through fissures in rocks, it's here and there, and always moving forward. And I think it's helpful to remember this about teenagers, that even when they're speaking like in monosyllabic grunts, and laying on the sofa like someone has decalcified their skeleton, you know, that there is a movement going on inside them.
There is an artesian, deeper flow that is moving, gathering, exploring, feelings are being thought about, situations are being mulled over. It's good to know this and to hold this, because sometimes it's tricky, because you don't get much out of teenagers. And I think it's really important to not insist on responses right there and then.
I think one of the clues to working with teenagers, and there's many ways of being with teens, is to place a question there and say, look, I'm just going to go and wipe down the counter. But when I come back, I just want to hear what you think about that, okay? Just know that I'll be circling back in half an hour to see how you think we're going to, you know, whatever it is. That sort of a slight stretching of the timeline, that slight just allowing kids to come up and have that water, because what we're doing is allowing space for that artesian water flow to come up to the surface.
There it is, there's the spring head. And sometimes it's really beautiful as a teenager, you know, they're fairly quiet, fairly inward. It's almost like their feelings are closed for renovation.
And then up it comes and something they want to talk all about. And you think, gosh, there it is. There's my child, there's my teen.
And she, he, they may talk all about something. Usually when you get those outbursts, those beautiful outbursts, it's about friendships, you know, and something that's been going on that they're excited about, or they're puzzled about. And then down it goes again.
And that underground water flow, I think we can take stock in knowing that it's gathering richness. And in the late teens, early 20s, then up it comes into the, you know, joining with this river, I guess, to extend this metaphor. There, that's the flow of their life.
Now there's hopefully in the 20s, all through the 20s, it happens overnight, but through the 20s, the water comes up. And is it still deep? Yes. But above the surface? Yes.
And it's now moving towards its goal. I think that particularly picks up pace around 25, 26, 27 years old. It takes a little while, it doesn't happen on the, you know, on the 21st year and all that kind of thing.
It's cumulative, of course. But to know that in those teen years, that there is going to be a flow, there is going to be a river, there is going to be a point where there's a strong direction in life that will very likely emerge. But right now, there's a gathering, it's an artesian gathering of emotional minerals below our feet.
Okay, I hope that's a helpful way of looking at it. Okay, bye bye for now.
