Today I am just talking out loud. I do not have answers, only questions. I have no statistics, no research, no hard core data. I am not part of a fact-finding team, nor an expert in this field. I am simply a therapist who is working with teens and I am sad. Really, really sad. I wish I can blame someone for what is happening. Parents would be perfect. Rebbeim or teachers. Principals or menahalim of schools and yeshivas. It would be so convenient to blame these people for what is happening to our teenagers. Because if we could identify what a lousy job these parents and principals have done raising their kids, if we could point to selfishness and disinterest or to violence and abuse, it would be perfect. Then we could understand why our teens are behaving the way they do and then we would have a solution to help them. To avoid the problem to begin with.
I wish.
Because I do not know about other therapists, but I have teens in my practice whose parents are so wonderful I wish I could clone them and give 'em out for free to everyone. My teen clients describe their parents as funny, as fun, wonderful, close, great parents, frum, good, and even “I want to have a marriage like my parents have.”
Which is when I want to shake that teenager so hard that her smart phone falls out of her pocket and cracks into a thousand pieces, and her long, dangly earrings snap out of her ears, and her long hair jumps up in shock to a normal length, and her brain startles out of its foggy emptiness and dead air between her ears, and her braces get jolted with enough electricity to light up the room.
Because I do not know about other therapists, but the principals, menahalim, teachers, rebbeim, and rabbanim I speak to about these teens are warm and worried. Open and embracing. Looking away from their knowledge of what this child is doing outside of school rules in order to inspire and help this child to return from these self destructive activities with their self esteem intact. Often paying for therapy. Often allowing the child to never know that in those crazy years his rebbe knew exactly what was going on and still loved him, still treated him as a masmid, still spoke to him with respect. So that when he returned, it was secure in the knowledge of an intact reputation.
What I want to make clear here, is that as a therapist, my job is NOT to ensure that a person remains religious. It is irrelevant to me as a social worker (although not as a frum person) at what level of religious observance, if any, my client is. But when a child rejects the culture and religion in which he was raised, psychologically, there is a break in this child's development. Something is wrong. Rejection of religion is only the symptom, not the cause. And therefore, when working with teens, my objective, as I tell their parents, is not to enforce religious behavior, it is to take away any negativity that the child is experiencing so that the child can live authentically and with menuchas hanefesh, so that automatically the symptoms—which in this case are the anti-religious/cultural behaviors—will be ameliorated.
When I first began working with teens, there were two types. First there were those that had completely left Yiddishkeit. Openly being mechallel Shabbos, rejecting the religious dress code of most standards, and unable to stay in the religious school system. There was flagrant disobedience, leaving home and staying out late hours, frequenting places anathema to their parents, and not eating kosher or adherence to cultural and religious practice.
The second type of rebellious teen was one who did all of this, but secretly. And stayed in the school system somehow. And of course, adhered to the religious dress code on some level, because that was the only way to stay in our school system.
The consensus was, when I first began, that the former type had experienced some type of abuse, so severe that this was their way of crying out their pain.
For the latter group, we often found that maybe we were not talking about abuse, but definitely pain. A child would act out if there was a lack of marital harmony. Or constant discipline involving hitting or shouting, past the age in which a child gets a potch for running into the street. Perhaps social awkwardness, learning issues, bullying; insensitive, hurtful, even inappropriate behavior by mechanchim.
And while this still remains true, and children will act out their pain because of any of the above situations, I am beginning to see with alarming frequency yet a third group.
The group of teens who seem like they fall into the second group of secretive acting-out behaviors, but these are children of intact homes, where good relationships and fun abound, they are doing academically well in school, and have friends.
It is scary.
I have spoken about teens before in my columns and I have to confess that although teens are my most favorite clients because of how they keep me on my toes and bring to therapy incredible potential, they are the population I least understand—despite my success in working with them. Like I have said, I do not answers. Only questions. Although we manage to create solutions in which they thrive.
But what I have found underlying these behaviors in my teen clients is a desperate unhappiness and an emptiness. A void where nothing exists and they are only able to fill with technology and superficial relationships that feel real because of their vividness and color, but are ultimately shallow and self-serving.
And the emptiness is not necessarily an absence of interests. These teens can be talented at a variety of things, and often parents are paying for lessons and opportunities to develop these talents at their teen's request. Art and music and photography and sewing and hair and dance.
No, the emptiness is a total lack of connection with Yiddishkeit. They are not happy about making their parents unhappy with their refusal to daven or make brachos; with wanting to dress in shorter skirts and open necklines and jeans. But they absolutely do not feel any connection, any reason why it matters, what the point is exactly anyhow?
I try to explain to parents their child's perspective.
Imagine I would ask you to look at the clock all day, and at different times to engage in a series of behaviors. At 8am you need to look out the window, count one hundred leaves, stick out your tongue in all directions, and then make a tumble sauce. It's possible you can do it once, twice, even for a year, but at what point do you say, “Mindy, this is ridiculous! Why do I need to do this?”
So these parents protest and say, “But Mindy, Yiddishkeit is beautiful! It makes sense! I try to explain all the time!”
But something is wrong with these explanations.
I tell you these parents are wonderful. But if these children are acting out against religion and our culture, and there is no history of abuse or pain, they are growing up in homes filled with light and joy, then something is wrong.
I refuse to blame the parents or schools.
But somehow our values are getting lost in translation. Or, whether the parents realize it or not, their own Yiddishkeit is simply by rote. It's beautiful because yom tov is beautiful whether or not you believe in why we keep Shavuous. It is wonderful to have children and grandchildren whether or not you believe in building a bayis ne'eman b'yisroel. But for a teen, whose essence is rebelliousness and questioning and seeking, their parents' religion needs to be meaningful, not merely convenient and beautiful.
Even if a teenager has never seen his parents watching a secular video, even if the teen never finds out, if parents are engaging in this behavior, it impacts on imbuing religious meaning into the teen's life. Don't ask me how. It just is true. Because our actions impact everything. It's like a child who cheats. Even if nobody finds out, it changes how she views the world, how she speaks, how she acts in other place. The cheating itself creates changes even when the cheating is long over.
I am not discussing the religious aspects of watching a secular video, I am referring the psychological ramifications when parents are not authentic to their cultural and religious belief systems. And demand that authenticity from their children.
I remember hearing a little boy once say, “I am allowed go to concerts until I am bar-mitzvahed, then I have to wait until I am married.” Funny? Sad.
So the point of this column?
I find that much of my work with these clients is to have conversations about meaning. That's all. And with meaning, they make their lives meaningful.
Somehow (and I don't know how), these wonderful parents need to do more than make their homes a happy, warm place. Their homes must also be meaningful. Because then, the trappings of that meaning—the rejection of smart phones and tznius and davening and disinterest in internet—might gain ascendance.
NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BINAH MAGAZINE
Look me up on LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindy-blumenfeld-a8067583
Check out my book THERAPY SHMERAPY, available in bookstores and through Amazon
Browse through my previously published articles on my former blog Therapy Thinks and Thoughts at frumtherapist.com/profile/MindyBlumenfeldLCSW
Read current articles in my bi-weekly column THERAPY: A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE in Binah Magazine, available on newsstands every Monday.